


Of Betrayals and Denials

by quills_at_dawn



Series: The Minutiae of Right [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassin's Creed: Rogue, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Historical, Multi, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 20:33:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11859159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quills_at_dawn/pseuds/quills_at_dawn
Summary: ____________________________"Last week was swept away in heavy flurries of Order business, Yuletide preparations and several strategic talks regarding what some of us see as an inevitable escalation into war, but, just at the moment, the youngest of the stable boys is juggling oranges for Johnson, Meadows and Pitcairn’s amusement and it reminds me that even if the future is uncertain, we have had a successful year."____________________________War rumbles closer and finally sweeps both Assassins and Templars into concerns larger than themselves, cementing the building resentments and the lines of conflict between them.Both camps are already in turmoil, what will remain of them once the fire of conflict burns away the superfluous?





	1. Haytham | The Governors' Ball

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the delay! Ended up being busier than expected but hopefully I can pick up a regular rhythm.  
> Hope you all enjoy the first chapter! <3

****

artwork by [geral-lenix](https://geral-lenix.tumblr.com/)

* * *

 

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

Even in the relative shelter of the porte cochère the chill wind whistles by, sets our cloaks flapping and threatens our hats, and as Colonel Monro gallantly hands Shay up into my coach before joining John Pitcairn in the hired one, the first snowflakes fall just beyond the confines of the porte cochère, near and stark against the dimensionless night beyond, and John and I exchange a glance.

Even wrapped up in the finest wools and furs as he is, Shay really ought not to be out in this weather and when I join them in the carriage, I can see that despite his smiles and the banter with John, the lines of his face are drawn and there’s a slight tightness in his soft voice.

A tap against the roof and we’re off, joining William Johnson’s and Benjamin Church’s carriages at the crossroads and proceeding down the avenue in a long, dismal convoy, lit at the front and back by lantern-bearing stable boys on horseback whose oilskin cloaks make them look like penitent monks, it being too cold and wet for the footmen to run alongside the carriages carrying lights the way as they usually would.

Outside the snowfall becomes heavier, more like sifted flour than flakes, occasionally whirled away by a gust of wind to reveal the deserted, darkened streets beyond. New York has not yet adopted Paris’ practice of putting oil lamps atop posts and the few lanterns strung over the streets are swinging, many of them have gone out, and the only sign that there are any inhabited houses beyond the curtain of snow are a few lamps in windows and the dim glow of light behind thick curtains.

Shay is looking out of the window, one gloved hand pressed against it, the ebb and flow of his breath visible around it. His face is barely visible under his neat tricorne trimmed with arctic fox fur and a red watered silk ribbon but I can well imagine his look of wonder. He hasn’t been this far from home since he first arrived.

John looks nearly as nervous as Shay. This his first big social even too - a much-anticipated one since as fascinated as New York society has been in recent days by rumours of my new omega mate, the name of the physician who saved him from certain death is also on everybody’s lips.

“I suppose there really will be a lot of people.”

“Oh, thousands.”

James DeLancey offered to host this year’s Yuletide Governor’s Ball in his own home, which suited both Sir Charles and Mrs James DeLancey, still saddened at the diminishment of her role as social hostess that her husband’s replacement as acting governor had signified. It is also a show of unity in the face of the coming war - DeLancey represents New York and brings to this event all of his influential social, business and political contacts, while Sir Charles represents the Crown, its authority and its military might in the form of captains and officers from the navy and army.

When Sir Charles heard I was entertaining guests from Boston over the festive season, he extended invitations to all of them so I unexpectedly find myself surrounded by my ‘old guard’ for Shay’s first public outing. This should be a strength. Only Gist, Weeks and Hickey stayed behind at the house to celebrate with the household staff ahead our our own Yuletide celebrations, which will start tomorrow and go on for almost a fortnight. Shay probably wishes he were with them.

Night turns to light and the snow to fire as we turn into the DeLancey estate, its carriageways ablaze with Bengal flares whoseshoots and flurries of sparks reach higher than the tops of our carriages, bathing us all in golden light as our coach joins the long line of other coaches waiting to disgorge their occupants as near as possible to the door and as far as possible from the slush and mud.

Our coach has barely come to a halt and already Monro is at the door to help Shay step down, both of them outlined against the brightly lit interior of the house and as we step in I can see James DeLancey and Sir Charles inside, welcoming each arrival, and beyond them all the bustle and noise of a ball in full swing. Sir Charles must have left orders, for when the footmen lining the entry catch sight of the coat-of-arms on the side of my carriage, one of them slips inside to inform him. The governor makes his way over, arriving in time to help Shay out of his fur-trimmed cloak, beaming at him before turning to me for a now superfluous introduction.

“Captain Cormac, how delightful to finally meet you. Come by the fire and tell me all about your sweet little brig. Captain Cook says you’ve done something quite brilliant in the hold. And have you really been to the West Indies?”

Carrying Shay’s outsized and betasselled fur muff for him, Sir Charles ushers him away and into a low upholstered bergère set by a fireplace, complete with a blanket folded over the side and evidently intended for him. Shay is soon comfortably installed and I walk with Mr and Mrs James DeLancey as they go over to greet him, having welcomed the rest of our party, and, his sixth sense having instantly alerted him to Shay’s presence, James Cook makes his way over too, sketching a quick bow with a smile.

“Good evening, Captain Cormac.”

“Captain Cook, good evening. Sir Charles has just been tellin’ me some of the flattering lies you’ve been spreadin’ about me.”

“I? Never! I’ll show you my reports, you’ll see there isn’t a word less than the absolute truth!”

The rest of our party joins us. Monro, who only met Shay two days ago but already regards him with paternal affection, has William Johnson on his arm. The two of them are most in agreement with me over how the current political and diplomatic situation stands, they’re also the ones who’ve been most accepting of Shay, though I think Johnson discounts Shay as an amusement and is projecting his own marital vagrancies onto me. Monro and Shay took to each other instantly and came to me severally to tell me how much they like the other. Pitcairn was friendly enough, any reserve he showed more due to his character than his opinion of Shay. As for Benjamin Church and Charles Lee… Even now, they stand a little aloof from the group, in polite conversation with the master of the house.

Bowing and nodding my way through the usual round of greetings and flattery the occasion warrants, I look around. The ballroom is grand and festive, its dark wood-panelled walls and high ceilings strung with evergreen boughs and coloured paper ornaments and streamers. The heart of it is a mass of milling bodies in silks and lace and flowers, some bright and gay, others pale and already losing some of their freshness. And everywhere the flash of gold and silver, flamelike precious stones, and the ice and fire of diamonds. All very handsome but I’m confident my own home will stand up to the comparison.

The music dies away and the dancing crowds melt away to the sides of the large, circular room where innumerable trestle tables have been set up and loaded with drinks in bowls and bottles, trays of wine glasses, platters of sweetmeats and candy dishes filled high with colourful bonbons. The swell of music is replaced by warm chatter and laughter.

Tomorrow I’ve reserved for my Templars, our families and our servants - to recover from tonight’s ball and strengthen the bonds and understanding between us before we all go on to face our various responsibilities in the coming year, but I’ve made it understood that we’ll be keeping open house thereon out and after months of much talked-about construction works and now that I have a mate whose nominal hospitality the ladies can decently accept, I expect many will avail themselves of the unspoken invitation.

Just now, Shay is surrounded by a skirt of such ladies, seated on low chairs and some of the younger ones even on the rugs laid down on the parqueted floors, the cups of wassail in their hands quite forgotten as they listen in rapt attention to his tales of faraway palaces in exotic lands and attacks by Malay pirates, some of whom are now part of his crew. Still weakened and pale, his lilting voice low and intimate, Shay does not look threatening at all. His appearance and existence are a consolation and a balm for the hearts and honour of all the mamas who’d had views on me for their little darlings - corseted waists and prettily displayed bosoms are poor weapons against a man who prefers omegas.

And Shay has never more looked the part of a rich man’s omega mate than he does tonight, fantastically handsome in his formal attire - jacket and breeches in watered silk that oscillates between aged silver and gunmetal depending on the light and how it moves, like ripples on water at night, burnished to deep bronze on his shoulder and along his thigh where the firelight shimmers, and a waistcoat of cloth of gold embroidered over with large black and red flowers, cut from a Japanese obi the full length of which weighed nearly six pounds - twenty feet of silk, gold thread and exquisite artisanship, unfortunately marked by water damage during its westward crossing. Shay’s cravat is wound up high on his neck and pinned in place by a diamond that matches those on his shoe and knee buckles and a knot of pearls hangs heavy on his chest, over his heart. Beneath the sparkling knee buckles, borrowed from me as I couldn’t have any made up for him in time, his legs are sheathed in scarlet stockings, embroidered at the ankles to dress and disguise their impossible slenderness, all bone and sinew. The arctic fox muff is piled onto his lap, thick and extravagant, its tassels hanging off Shay’s knee and brushing against his beautifully-shaped calves, the gold-bound silk threads glowing with the reflected light of the fire, and, long nestled in the milky tufts marbled with the faintest grey lines, Shay’s hand lies still while the diamonds on his ring blaze away quietly.

From his position by Shay, Sir Charles makes the occasional comment, eliciting twitters of laughter from the ladies and grateful smiles from Shay. After such a marked show of favour, I think I need not fear any immediate impertinence or offence to Shay, whose poor nerves have suffered as much as they can currently take in the lead-up to this event. He viewed his own outfit with grave reservations, and the powdering of my hair with undisguised horror. However, my own outfit - a Prussian blue coat, heavily embroidered in gold and silver along the lapels and cuffs, matching breeches and a pale oyster waistcoat - seemed to find favour in his eyes.

After a pat on Shay’s shoulder, Sir Charles takes my arm for a turn about the room.

“What a charmer that young mate of yours is, Master Kenway.”

“He is, isn’t he? I’m afraid he’s rather prone to taking advantage.”

Sir Charles laughs at this.

“No harm in it, I daresay.”

“Not yet but I’ll need the Navy’s help to keep him in line, I’ve no head for denying him. Perhaps you’ll help me? I’ve heard rumours that certain well-deserved papers will soon leave the Admiralty for Fort George.”

He can’t help a pleased chuckle.

“You’ve heard, have you? It is supposed to be a secret.”

Sir Charles is to be made Rear-Admiral of the Blue, the lowest of ranks as admiral but the necessary first rung on the ladder of promotion.

“Must be the worst-kept secret in the Colonies. I won’t congratulate you until the thing is done but you have my warmest wishes.”

“Most kind, Kenway.”

“The rank will bring an active command with it?”

“Oh, I expect so. I certainly _hope_ so. And I hope you will step in if it does happen, Kenway. I have given some thought to the idea of a blockade and I shall certainly give orders for it. Once Captain Cormac is back on his feet there will be a long cruise in it for him, chasing blockade-runners - should bring money and excitement.”

“You’re too kind, Sir Charles.”

“Cormac has already helped us a great deal with his charts and indications and he’ll be an even greater help yet, I’ll wager, so he may as well start taking his reward. Listen, Kenway, since we’re all agreed that you should take over from me, we should meet oftener, so you can keep abreast of whatever is happening. I’ve given my secretaries standing orders that you be sent a copy of anything of moment. Loudoun has a scheme he wants to discuss so we’ll have at least one face-to-face meeting either here or down in Virginia. Here, most likely, as Boscawen is to be of the party and he’s leery of leaving his station in Halifax - excused himself tonight on those very grounds.”

“Whatever I can do. I hear from one of my Charlestown contacts that the merchants there are becoming very anxious - things are seen to be so uncertain that the price of slaves has utterly collapsed.”

“Yes, I’ve heard similar rumblings. I’m not privy to any secrets, but I can’t imagine this can go on much longer. In effect, we already _are_ at war. Do you know that boy, Washington? Well, he and his men are spending their yuletide in tents and priming their rifles - that there has been no formal declaration of war makes not a jot of difference to them.”

The dancing has resumed so we skirt around the whirl of silks and powdered wigs, and my keen hearing allows me to eavesdrop on the conversations we pass. Here, Johnson, Meadows and my jaeger discuss the leg injury Johnson acquired at Lake George, which earned him a £5’000 reward but which now prevents him from dancing, then Johnson expressing his admiration of Meadows’ skill in bringing about Shay’s recovery and asking whether he would consider a consultation. When they’re joined by Monro, William Eyre* and a couple of officers, the talk turns to the construction of Fort William-Henry.

There, Charles Lee struggles to give our host a clear and fair account of Shay’s character, and a little further along Church is deep in conversation with a wealthy Hudson Valley landowner.

“Given up for dead! I had it from the mouth of both physicians! Worst case of pneumonia they’d ever seen, they said. They listened to his chest and were certain he could have no longer than a day to live. They’re delighted he’s recovered, of course, but these things happen, independently from treatment. The boy obviously comes from hardy stock. Still, still, quite the little Yuletide miracle.”

Captain Cook helps the captain of a West Indiaman and a wealthy Albany merchant to more wassail from a silver punch bowl nestled in evergreen boughs.

“Oh aye, Captain Cormac can be trusted to keep your ships safe, he’s quite the terror of these waters. His brig carries nothing superfluous, just guns and enough sailors to man them and the ship, you see, and being small and shallow you’ll not find a faster one her size. Just mind your ships keep close to shore, the _Phantom Queen_ cannot sail too far out if she’s to protect you effectively.”

This too was the reason Shay had to come tonight. Our marriage still hasn’t been made official but it is common knowledge among New York’s elite as are the various rumours surrounding it - the circumstances of our meeting, Shay’s near death and the whirlwind marriage that almost sounds like an elopement. It was evident that Sir Charles wanted the honour of Shay’s first social outing and after all he’s done for us it was impossible to deny him. And it is better this way. Presented under the aegis of two colonial governors, his place in society underwritten by them, Shay has been catapulted into the highest levels of New York society in a way that I alone could not have managed.

But after nearly three hours of talk and noise in a strange place, my precious hawkling is tired and I can see Meadows trying to catch my gaze as he makes a show of kneeling by Shay and taking his wrist in his hand to feel his pulse - our pre-arranged signal. When I first accepted the invitation on Shay’s behalf, Sir Charles and I agreed that he would only stay a few hours then go home while I and the rest of my party stayed on, there being enough carriages between us to get us all home.

When I reach him, Shay looks up at me, so wide-eyed and inquiring that I can’t help pressing the quickest little kiss onto his forehead.

“You did so well, Shay. So very well. Come, let’s get you home.”

There’s still a languor in him as he gets to his feet, pressing his hands onto the edge of the seat, carrying the weight through to his wrists to push himself up.

This is a vast change from his old life and even from the first few weeks of his new life with me, and it is just the beginning, his baptism of fire.

I’ve made it know that we’ll be keeping open house from tomorrow until the end of the season and given the interest in our couple and the house, I’ve no doubt we’ll see a constant stream of guests.

Sir Charles, James Cook and Monro follow us out to see Shay off and I hop into the coach a moment to settle him in.

“I’m fine.”

There’s a smile even in his voice and I indulge us in a brief kiss in the privacy of the carriage.

“All the same, straight to bed, Shay. Don’t let me catch you still awake.”

Dropping back out of the coach, I tap its side twice and give the coachman his instructions.

“Home!”


	2. Liam | The Bull Elk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the Davenport Homestead, reconstruction work continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! We finally made it to 1756! XD 
> 
> And thank you all so much for the kudos and comments, it's great to start with a bang! <3 
> 
> Off to the homestead to see how the Christmas festivities are going up in Massachusetts... Enjoy!

**LIAM**

_Davenport Homestead, Massachusetts, January 1756_

 

Not a sound and barely any snowfall as Kesegowaase leaps onto the branch of a hundred-foot maple from our perch on a hunting platform, then leans into the fork where it joins the trunk. I’d have chosen a sturdier limb but Kesegowaase has known these woods since he was a child and been a tracker nearly as long, he can gauge how much weight a branch can take down to the last ounce and if it can safely take his weight then it can surely take mine.

As I land beside him he glances at me then jerks his head north-north-east of our position and I spot our quarry.

Seems absurd for two master assassins to be out hunting game for food - even if it is a six hundred pound bull elk - since it’s a task usually assigned to our advanced trainees but I had to get away and at the moment Kesegowaase is the only person whose presence I can stand.

Weeks after my return, the atmosphere at the homestead is still shite. At least the others no longer come up to me to say they’re sorry for my loss and ask if there’s anything they can do for me but even Chevalier still tiptoes around me and the novices lower their gazes whenever they cross my path - in respect, as if Shay were not just gone but dead and I can’t help wishing he was.

Nobody has questioned that Shay’s outburst that day was intended to detract from his failures in Lisbon, his returning without the Piece of Eden and the loss of the manuscript - but then it’s easy to believe, given his reputation. Everybody also accepts that I went to New York to fetch him after he washed up there and was captured in the doing of it - but then that’s easy to believe too, given my reputation.

Of course there’s still talk and two camps have emerged. One pities me and still thinks we should make an effort to bring Shay back for my sake. The other thinks Shay will get what’s coming to him now he’s at Grand Master Kenway’s mercy and that I’m better off without him - though since I lost my temper the first time, nobody says that to my face anymore. Whenever Hope, Chevalier or the others hear that type of talk they give the novices an indulgent scolding until their anger cools to the gentle simmer we want. I should be doing the same, to help protect the truce we claim Achilles offered Haytham Kenway in return for my freedom (thought it wasn’t enough to secure Shay’s too), but whenever I start it just reminds me how much I’d like to wring Shay’s neck myself.

Without taking his eyes from our prey, Kesegowaase prepares his bow and arrow and I do the same. A grunt from him when the bull lowers his head to graze and we both let our arrows fly, felling the him instantly. After slinging away our bows, we start clambering down to the ground.

“We can leave the antlers and bones here if they are too heavy. They will be clean in a few days. It will make our load lighter.”

After setting down a few straw mats and oilskins, we get to work skinning and paring the meat and even after all these years I can still learn from Kesegowaase, whose technique isn’t just efficient but elegant and as I emulate his long, steady strokes and economy of movement some of the tension and anger ease out of me.

We’ve had our problems, Kesegowaase and I, especially in recent years, but just now, alone and quiet and working together without needing to talk, I’m reminded of why I noticed and liked him so much all those years ago, why I recruited him. The petty angers and disagreements have all been washed away and it’s like we’re back at the beginning - before Shay.

Kesegowaase is one of the few who knows the whole truth and he’s the only one who hasn’t said anything to me about it one way of the other. But then I’m told he was in favour of just cutting our losses with Shay and that as far as he’s concerned I was set up for failure from the start - though the exact sequence of events must have been a surprise even for him.

“William Johnson is Superintendant of Indian Affairs.”

Not exactly a surprise and Kesegowaase says it the way he say everything, like he’s discussing weather he’s indifferent to.

“ _Baronet_ William Johnson, aye. I suppose the Kanien’kehá:ka will keep siding with the British.”

“Yes.”

“And Kanatahséton? If their position changed it might encourage the others.”

“Oiá:ner has decided they will remain neutral.”

“What about Kaniehtí:io? She’s fought the British before, she might do so again. Or at least recruit warriors from clans outside her own for our cause.”

“She has been trying to convince her mother and will continue to do so but I do not think Oiá:ner will change her mind. Kaniehtí:io cannot help us herself, she is five months pregnant.”

My knife nearly slips against the hide’s wet underside so I pause in my work. Kaniehtí:io is a warrior, destined to succeed her mother as clan mother, an ally of our Brotherhood, and personal friend of Achilles’. 

“Five months pregnant? But she’s not married, is she?”

“No, she is not.”

“So who is the father?”

“She will not say. Nobody from the village.”

“How will she manage?”

“The village will help her. If it is a boy, I will help also, if she wishes.”

“Five months… Where was she? Didn’t she…? Wasn’t she involved with Braddock’s death?”

“Yes. She recruited and led a group of warriors to help the French.”

Kesegowaase grunts so I hold back the edge of the hide for him and he starts freeing it from the flesh in short, smooth strokes.

“I spoke with the men who were there. They said she was with a British man dressed as a soldier but not of the military. She told them he was the chief of his clan.”

His knife moves continuously and soon we’re able to pull back a flap of the hide.

“You don’t mean…?”

“Charles Lee was there. So were young Washington and Christopher Gist.”

“Kenway?”

“Perhaps. She does not speak of it.”

Kaniehtí:io? With Kenway? And _pregnant_?

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“She has gone back to her people. That child will never belong to Haytham Kenway. And she is not my woman.”

No, but Shay was supposed to become my mate and at the thought of him with Kenway my stomach turns in revulsion and suddenly I can’t get the cloying smell of warm blood and raw flesh, stale musk and offal out of my lungs.

Kesegowaase doesn’t pay any attention to me and keeps working, now cutting into the meat. But I know him, I’ve always known him, and he knows me - how could I have forgotten him?

“But if she had been?”

Expressionless, he cuts, exposing bone.

“I would have killed her.”

Aye, and so he would.

Despite his patient, steady character, Kesegowaase can be hot-blooded when it comes to his honour and the well-being of his people - even violent, at times. I know he often thought me too lenient with Shay, as did Hope, and no doubt he would have used a firmer hand with an intended like Shay. And he really would have rather seen Shay dead than in Kenway’s bed. What does he think of my accepting it? Does he think less of me? And yet, he shows no sign of it and in the last few days we’ve grown closer than ever.

After quartering off a haunch, Kesegowaase wipes the sweat off his brow with his sleeve then returns to work.

“I had a message from Obwandiyag. The Odawa are fighting the British colonists for their land. I will go north to help them fight.”

“Not sure Achilles will like that. We’re supposed to leave off that kind of thing for a bit, just until it’s all official.”

“I fight to protect my land and that of my people. Your wars are no concern of mine. We were fighting before Washington was even born to lead that ambush in Jumonville Glen and we will keep fighting whatever the outcome. Once we drive out the British, we will fight to have better terms with the French.”

“But your actions might compromise the Brotherhood, Achilles promised-.”

“My actions only compromise me. I am a Wolastoqiyik warrior. This is my path. It was my path before the Assassins. It would have been my path if I had not met you Assassins. It must always be my path. ”

He’s right. None of this is his doing and we can’t expect our native allies to be bound the way we are.

“Well, maybe if you keep a low profile. You could just help with planning and training, without leading any of the attacks yourself, just for a while.”

Kesegowaase puts his knife in his mouth, holding it with his teeth so he can free up his hands and I help him rend muscle and tendon from bone. After he takes hold of his knife again, he turns to spit out a bit of elk’s blood and it sits there, bright and red on the untouched snow, slowly sinking under the weight of its own heat.

“Wardrop should have been my kill. And if I ever have the chance to, I must kill William Johnson. It will not stop the British taking our lands but it will slow them. Warraghiyagey* has too much power over the Kanien’kehá:ka. Without him, we might convince them to fight with us. And without them, the British would be much weaker.”

Warraghiyagey. Aye, like it or hate it, William Johnson really is “a man who undertakes great things”** and now that has the full weight of his new position and title, he’s bound to become an even greater obstacle than he has been.

My hold on the hide slips, slick with blood, and Kesegowaase waits, chewing on a handful of snow, while I rub a bit of snow on my hands then wipe them on a corner of oilskin. Thankfully the body’s still warm - hot, even, in its deepest parts - and our gloves are kept dry and clean, tucked up under our clothing for afterwards.

As he gets back to work, I stroke a hand over the fur. It’s a beautiful hide, we barely marked it, it’ll fetch a good price - we don’t need any more at the homestead, and besides, we can make do with inferior hides. This nice rack of antlers should sell well too. We’re still trying to find funds to continue repairing the damage done by the snowstorm and Achilles has plans for building up the homestead.

Kesegowaase grunts so I take up my knife again and get back to cutting.

“They know about Fort Henry.”

_What?_

“How?”

Kesegowaase shakes his head, raising his steady gaze to me a moment before he takes a handful of snow to wipe off his knife. The snow comes away dark but still the leather-bound grip on the handle is stained and soaked in blood. Kesegowaase unwinds it, gives both it and the blade another clean and then a wipe on the leg of his trousers before wrapping the long leather strap around the handle again, holding the loose end in his teeth and pulling it taut at every half turn.

“Achilles says Kenway has a picture of you and papers signed by people who were there and swear they recognise you. He knows I was there too.”

_But how?_

“Shay?”

The name hangs between us a moment. Neither of us has spoken it in the presence of the other for years. We’ve never even spoken of seeing him there, in Kenway’s house, dressed like a little lord, an expensive Templar tart.

But even to my own ears my voice sounds natural and Kesegowaase barely acknowledges the word.

“He did not know. But you must be careful. They know you now. You will not be freed a second time.”

_Why didn’t Achilles tell me?_

The manuscript, Shay, the loss of Fort Arsenal, the _Morrigan_ and most of her crew, so many of our brothers imprisoned, put to forced labour, practically enslaved, then the snowstorm and that infamous deal with Kenway for my sake - all seven plagues of Egypt. Aye, perhaps Achilles was just trying to spare me another piece of bad news. He too has been treating me like cracked china. He never used to spare me anything before.

I suppose I deserve it. So many mistakes and the shame of capture, the cost of my release - I’ll have to earn his trust and respect again. His and Chevalier’s and Kesegowaase’s. And Hope’s.

Kesegowaase stops and rocks back onto his haunches, looking down at the carcass then up at the sky.

“We will finish tomorrow.”

“I’ll fetch the sledge.”

The trek back to where we left the lightweight sledge is silent and wearing,the snow is still too deep for easy walking.

_Shay…_

_Married…_

_To Haytham Kenway…_

When Achilles told me - _us_ \- in the coach on the way back to the homestead, I didn’t believe it. Part of me still doesn’t. _Shay_. My Shay, who’s always late for everything and who can’t be trusted to wear matching socks or keep his clothes off the floor, _married_ to a Templar Grand Master, to _Haytham Kenway_ , of all people. The only thing I find more difficult to believe is Haytham Kenway marrying Shay.

Taking hold of the sledge’s reins, I start dragging it back. It’s a light one and doesn’t sink too much into the snow, so it’s not too heavy going.

A man like Kenway could have his pick of wealthy heiresses. And odious as he is, it would be pushing things quite far for him to marry someone like Shay just to spite Achilles and I.

No, my initial instinct must be right. Shay must have had the manuscript. Why why this farcical marriage? Can it really be true? Or will it all turn out to be a sham in six months’ time when the truce lapses?

Ahead, Kesegowaase is sitting by the elk, immobile as a statue.

That’s how he was in the coach too, when Achilles told us. Still and silent. And yet I know he must’ve felt _something_.

Wordlessly, Kesegowaase and I load what we can onto the sledge then we head back, each of us taking one of the reins to pull, our combined strength just enough to keep it moving along the path we stamp into the snow.

This is lowly, menial work that neither of us would usually stoop to. But there’s too much snow to take the horses out and I didn’t want anyone else to come with us.

As we near the homestead, the going gets easier and we start to see some of our brothers chopping wood, rebuilding fences and training circuits.

Achilles wants to overhaul the property and the community, says that the snowstorm - all the damage, being snowed in and cut off from the road for days - made him think we should be more self-reliant.

We’ve already built a lumber mill to speed up reconstruction and in view of developing the homestead. Achilles says the land is rich, he wants to mine it and farm it, he wants a smithy,tanner and a tailor so we can produce higher value goods from the resources we recover and sell or trade them for a higher profit. He wants a doctor and last night he even mentioned a church.

A handful of novices rush out to take the sledge from us, huffing and puffing as they drag it over slush-mud and gravel, and Kesegowaase and I sit down on a pile of logs, taking swigs of whiskey-water from a canteen one of the novices darts over to bring us.

For a while, we soak up the drink and a few passing rays of sunshine in silence.

Not sure what to think of it all. Is this what he really wants or is he just trying to give us all something to do for six months? To give _me_ something to do?

Just weeks ago, I felt I always knew what Achilles was really thinking. We’ve always understood each other that way.

But ever since I got back, I’ve been constantly second-guessing what he means. And it’s been the same with Hope. We were always so close, able to understand each other at a glance, but now I’m always looking for a hidden meaning behind her words.

With Kesegowaase it’s been just the opposite. We’d fallen out of touch but now we’re closer than ever.

But… what did he mean when he told me that Kenway knows about my involvement in Fort Henry? Is that his way of encouraging me to carry out Achilles’ plans, staying here at the homestead where I can keep out of sight of Templars and British troops?

I take another swig of whiskey but this time it burns in my throat.

Aye, I made a mistake but it’s the first one and the _only_ one in nearly twenty years! Do I really deserve to be confined to the homestead like a novice? To no longer be Achiles’ council? If Kenway is right then we have a war to prepare for and even if there isn’t, we still have to recover the manuscript - would Achilles really have me stay out here herding sheep?

Clenching my fists, I force myself back to calm then stand.

“We should get cleaned up.”

Kesegowaase nods, gets to his feet without disturbing so much as a twig, and we both head back to the big house.

Achilles and I will have to talk, but not today, not until the homestead is back in working order, not until we can start training our novices again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warraghiyagey: The native name given to William Johnson by the Mohawk, sometime around 1742. 
> 
> **English translation of ‘Warraghiyagey”.


	3. Haytham| Twelfth Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In New York, the festive period slowly comes to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow updates, been busy busy but never fear, it's definitely not been abandoned! <3

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, January 1756_

 

A hoot of laughter and Monro and I glance over to where Thomas Hickey is prancing around on all fours, dressed in his Sunday best and surrounded by tiny children all screeching with merriment while two little girls sit astride his back, hanging onto his clothes and hair, bouncing up and down as they urge him to go faster. Thomas Hickey - Johnson’s aide-de-camp and possibly the most dissolute character I have ever worked with. A short-sighted, arrogant, roguishly charming, womanising lecher of an alpha drunkard, better suited to a life as an underworld baron than a private in the British Army. And yet, in his own base, expeditious, self-serving way he is more reliable than Benjamin Church, the fashionable and eminently well-connected Boston doctor, whose self-serving ways are less base, more circuitous, and decidedly opaque.

Charles Lee and Church have spent the best part of the last two hours skulking in a quiet corner and at the moment they are glaring across the room at Shay as he tries his hand at hosting by cutting and serving the last of the cake under Barrington’s watchful gaze. Most of the household have had theirs and are now milling around the reception room -finished _in extremis_ and now festooned with evergreen garlands and beribboned silver punch bowls of wassail - and mingling with my others guests, the Rite’s most important members and their families, and even now the new Lady Johnson, her children and Benjamin Church’s wife play pass the slipper with maids, footmen and valets.

“This last fortnight has been splendid, and this… Kenway, this is marvellous.”

Monro’s low, elegant voice is full of emotion.

The colonel’s family stayed behind in Ireland and perhaps the joyous noise reminds him of what he’s missing.

“It is an excess, but - well, I’m not sure we’ll have the chance next year so we should make the most of it.”

“Yes, and we do have things to celebrate. Johnson’s baronetcy and your marriage to that charming sea captain.”

“Oh yes, Shay is charming and doesn’t he know it. This overabundance of children you see was his doing. He would have invited every last soul on the estate and even when I put my foot down he insisted that all the children be allowed to come and have their slice of cake.”

“No harm in that. And Thomas is enjoying himself.”

Monro takes a sip of his punch.

The Governor’s Ball was followed by ten days of visits, banquets, balls, and today, the fifth of January, on this very last day of festivities before things go back to normal tomorrow, we’re following up all the dancing, eating and excesses with a day of games and indulgence.

Benjamin Church and Charles Lee will return to Boston - the former with an increased intimacy with New York’s elite, the latter now better known by the higher levels of military command, which will no doubt serve him if and when he rejoins the army. Pitcairn has acquired a few solid naval intelligence contacts, Monro and Johnson will head north together to continue work on their fort.

We’ve had several open house days and by now most of the cream of New York’s society has traipsed through here - some to see me, some to see Shay, some to see the house, and others yet to see who else might be here. Crowds, noise and disorder are not things I usually look forward to but these festivities are a welcome reprieve from the responsibilities that have weighed on my mind. The last few weeks were swept away in heavy flurries of Order business, Yuletide preparations and several strategic talks regarding what some of us see as an inevitable escalation into war, but, just at the moment, the youngest of the stable boys is juggling oranges for Johnson, Meadows and Pitcairn’s amusement and it reminds me that even if the future is uncertain, we have had a successful year.

And war, as undesirable as it is, always creates opportunities, particularly for this Rite since it has a decidedly martial bent. By now all the Rite’s senior members are convinced that war is imminent but it has taken this final week to convince the last sceptics. Well, in truth, I’m not sure Church _is_ convinced yet but Charles at least is. He had expected more Braddock-style incursions and has been making useful contacts with the local militias and natives, but it took a private word with the governor to make him fully see that a far more comprehensive strategy is necessary.

As I expected, Monro has taken the news both of the truce and my marriage in his stride but the others did not and there is still great resistance to Shay. They have trouble believing that Shay, an omega, could be the captain of a ship and more especially its crew, they distrust his motives in giving us the information that led to the taking of Fort Arsenal and the _Morrigan_ because I found him in a cell and he may have acted under duress - not entirely unreasonable. And the fact that he has become my mate in the space of a few days only doubles their concerns that I am not thinking clearly. Johnson, Monro and Pitcairn immediately understood my offer to Achilles but Church and even Charles Lee don’t see why I bartered Liam O’Brien for a ceasefire in a war that hasn’t even begun yet.

“Charles and Church will take some time to accept him.”

“Charles Lee may never accept him, Kenway, you know that.”

He’s right and I do. Charles’ feelings for me have been an open secret since I established this Rite and the others have made it understood that they think him a fitting mate for me - Johnson and Church have even dropped heavy hints to encourage me.

Perhaps I should have clarified my feelings with Charles at the start. After all, I did give the possibility of a match due consideration when I became aware of it and then rejected it. My behaviour with Charles was never ambiguous and I certainly never encouraged him but I suppose that while I remained unmarried he continued to hope.

Still. I hadn’t foreseen he would take it so personally.

“If I’d had any doubts about Charles, they’re resolved now - he disappoints me. I’d have thought that as a fellow omega Charles would have been more sympathetic.”

“Oh, Charles sympathises, just not with Cormac.”

_Ah._

“He thinks this is about Reginald Birch?”

“As does Church. And Pitcairn and Johnson don’t exclude it.”

Well, I suppose I don’t blame them. Pitcairn has his own sources of information but for the others, the news of Reginald Birch’s death arrived on the same ship as me - Johnson had it from my own mouth.

Most of them, however, had never met him and therefore only knew him (and me, before I first arrived in the colonies) by reputation. A reputation that may have distorted the reality of my relationship with Birch.

Their half-hour break over, the chamber orchestra strikes up again and I catch Shay glancing at me and after a nod from Barrington, he makes his way over to us, smiling and carrying a couple pie-laden plates.

Shay is fairly indifferent to silk breeches, fine cambric shirts and cabriole-legged rosewood dressing-tables but he has an immoderate love of food and out of all the luxuries these holidays have afforded him, music has most moved him and he owned to me a few night ago that he had never heard _such_ music as he has since the Governor’s Ball.

My beautiful hawkling has been a marvel and has borne our endless stream of curious visitors and the condescension of certain Order members with fortitude and equal temper and even a certain natural grace. He and Barrington have fallen into a kind of easy partnership, the boundaries of their relationships with each other and with me having fallen into place in such a way that there is almost no overlap.

Shay settles between George Monro and I and hands us a plate each. Monro, who already dotes on Shay and has promised to take him under his wing once the fort is completed and he returns to New York, beams at him as he accepts the plate.

“Thank you, Master Cormac, is this the one?”

Our cook appointed Shay ‘head taster’ and so whatever time he doesn’t spend entertaining our guests or in the orangerie or in my study or in my arms, he spends in a comfortable chair by the kitchen fires, being fed a little of everything and delighting in it all. Over dinner last night, smiling and bright-eyed, he regaled us with the tale of an enormous Yorkshire pie that had taken upwards of four hours to bake.

“Aye. Isn’t it amazing?”

“Quite remarkable. Tell me, what areeach of these rings?”

Monro has eaten many a Yorkshire pie before this and certainly knows how they’re made but he’s indulging Shay, listening to how he helped Cook bone a quail, a partridge, a guinea fowl, a duck, a chicken, a pheasant, a goose, a turkey, and a half-dozen other birds besides, then wrapping the progressively larger birds around the smaller then setting the result inside a pie crust later shaped to look like a swan with raised wings, as though just landing on water. George patiently touches each of the concentric layers of meat so that Shay may tell him exactly which species of unfortunate bird it is. He spoils him shamelessly, as does James Cook, who is due to arrive at any moment now.

Surveying the room, I see John Meadows disengage himself from his group and responding to Monro’s unspoken invitation by settling into a nearby armchair.

“It was very kind of you to care for Master Cormac as you did, Doctor Meadows. Has Sir William been asking for more advice about his leg injury?

“Yes, though I doubt I’ll be able to do much for him. He’s asked me to go to his house for a more thorough consultation but I don’t want to step on any toes.”

“Oh, I’m sure Church won’t mind, Meadows. Besides, he lives in Boston and I’m sure he understands the necessity for Johnson and I to have a reliable physician here in New York.”

One of the footmen on duty knocks on the open door then announces Sir Charles and Captain James Cook over the general confusion and music and we all look up as they step in, richly dressed and the captain in his best uniform and with a canvas-wrapped package under his arm. After the customary greetings, they settle into the chairs that have been pulled up with them and Cook presents Shay with the parcel.

“From Admiral Boscawen, straight from the Halifax naval yard, to apologise for not waiting on you himself.”

Unfolding the canvas wrapping, Shay reveals a length of rope about the thickness of his wrist and his eyes go wide with delight.

Seeing our bemused faces, Cook chuckles and explains.

“The finest Manila cordage. The rest is in one of the dock warehouses, several coils in different weights, and the promise of more whenever we have it in store, whenever you need it.”

Shay thanks him, nearly breathless, turning the rope over in his hands before handing it to me, his eyes bright with excitement, though he must know I cannot possibly appreciate its value.

“Cormac, I was just telling Cook here that you’ve actually seen Brave Benbow’s grave.”

“Aye, I was in Kingston for about three days on a delivery so I went to see it. Always liked that story. Beautiful tombstone, all marble and engraved with his coat of arms and everything.”

“Kingston, how I envy you! Sir Charles, I don’t suppose you or the Admiral have anything you need me to deliver down in the West Indies?”

Sir Charles chuckles.

“Not at the moment, James, but I daresay you’ll have your great adventure yet!”

After motioning one of the footmen to refill our cups from a nearby punchbowl of wassail, I tighten one of the ribbons that binds Shay’s sleeves.

“Who is this Benbow?”

Sir Charles accepts a fresh cup of punch, a thoughtful look on his face as he launches into the tale.

“John Benbow must have been, yes, Rear-Admiral of the White when he was first sent down to the West Indies to protect our possessions there from the Spanish and to see what he could do about the pirate problem there back in - When was it, Cook? ’99?”

“He arrived in Barbados in ’99, aye, sir, though he left Madeira at the end of ’98 with the _Paramore_ , if you remember, sir, who was headed for these parts on a scientific mission.”

“Quite right, so she was. As he’d had experience sailing there, he was sent back in the year one to intercept a Spanish fleet loaded with silver - before the French got to it, you understand. By the year two he was Vice-Admiral of the White and it was then he crossed Rear-Admiral Jean du Casse’s* squadron off Cape Santa Marta, past Hispaniola.”

He and James Cook then launch into a technical recounting of the engagement - aided by punch cups, bits of silverware and napkins, and all patently for Shay’s benefit though it is clear from certain of his interjections that he knows the tale at least as well as they do - and of the shameful conduct of Benbow’s captains, who turned and abandoned him though they had all the odds and the numbers in their favour, so blackguardly, and so overtly so, that the French Admiral sent his rival a letter, which Cook now recounts.

“ _Sir_ , he writes, _I had little hopes on Monday last but to have supped in your cabin: but it pleased God to order it otherwise. I am thankful for it. As for those cowardly captains who deserted you, hang them up, for by God they deserve it_.”

Monro nods gravely.

“I’m not always in agreement with the French but Admiral du Casse was quite right, ‘hang them up’. Where would we all be otherwise?”

“Indeed, two of the captains were found guilty of breach of orders and dereliction of duty, and shot, and the Admiralty has taken a much tougher stance on such offences, haven’t they, Cook?”

“Aye, I’d better do my best for Admiral Boscawen!”

“Oh, I doubt _you’ll_ ever get into trouble with him, James.”

Sir Charles then turns his fond gaze to Shay and pats his knee paternally.

“As for you, Cormac, you need never fear being court-martialled. Oh no, not you.”

Shay, who probably had no notion of any such peril hanging over his head, smiles and nods solemnly. 

They - _we_ \- are all finding our feet when it comes to how to treat him. Given the way he looks, his competencies and the subjects we often raise before him, treating him like a wife seems unnatural and yet he is my mate and under my protection and so many men, Sir Charles among them, have fallen into treating Shay like an exceptionally precocious child.

Church and Charles Lee have quietly approached the group but remained on the fringes of the conversation which has turned to the letter folded into a copy of the Pennsylvania Gazette I had from Benjamin Franklin this afternoon, detailing the measures being taken there to counter the recent slew of attacks: a fort to be built at the fringe of the secure territories, a 500-strong militia, Franklin himself made a commissioner, along with an account of what he’s seen on his tour of the sites of depredation. Farms and homesteads abandoned, the families they had housed fled with whatever they could carry but most of what they’d owned left behind in the panic and urgency - crops, cattles, pots, pans, tools, all the things that make up a livelihood, cast off. Bodies left strewn on the ground, daughters taken, families locked into their houses and burnt, entire existences forsaken. 

Monro, looking both mournful and severe, exchanges a few quiet words with Shay before my tender-hearted hawkling inches into my arms imperceptibly and I brush the briefest, lightest kiss onto his hair.

Shay doesn’t know of Liam’s and Kesegowaase’s roles in the massacre, nor will he ever, if I can help it. He has cut his ties with Liam and the Assassins completely but I know thinking of Liam still pains him and he doesn’t need the additional weight of knowing where Liam was and what he was doing when they ought to have been in Lisbon together. I want to spare him and yet a part of me worries at keeping secrets from him - there have been so many lies and secrets between us already.

Secrets and lies too between myself and my Templars since most of them do not know all there is to know about Shay and my deal with Achilles. They all know he was an Assassin and that it was he who killed Lawrence Washington and the others and they know of my exchanging Liam O’Brien for a truce, but only Pitcairn and Johnson know of Liam the Assassins’ role in the attack at Fort Henry and only George Monro knows about the manuscript and Shay’s visit to Lisbon.

Church and Lee don’t or won’t see Shay’s worth. They believe, as Shay himself once did, that the favour the Navy shows him is due to my influence and not a reflection of his worth. And because I’ve held so much back, I can hardly blame them and over the last fortnight they’ve been here I’ve been patient, giving them some time to adjust to the situation. But I cannot countenance any more of this surly reticence, this passive disrespect shown towards my mate and, through him, to me.

And so, nonchalantly but in sight of all, I take Shay’s hand and under his gentle gaze, touch my lips to it, just there, above the band of glittering diamonds that mark him as mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Jean du Casse, and not Julien du Casse, if you catch my drift.


	4. Achilles | The Wavering Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weeks later, Achilles wonders what to do to help Liam who still isn’t back to his old self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early chapter! Nothing particular, still resetting the scene after the big break :)   
> A huge thank you for all the comments and kudos! Such lovely encouragement <3

**ACHILLES**

_Davenport Homestead, Massachusetts, January 1756_

 

_A pinhead._

That is all that is left of the Piece of Eden we spent four years searching for.

On all the maps and charts that cover the walls of my study, only a pinhead holding down the knotted end of a strand of red yarn marks the temple beneath what are now only the ruins of a convent in Lisbon where the priceless artefact was, the only thing to show that it ever existed. Nothing more. Not even a scrap of paper stating which of the artefacts it was since Shay did not even give us that information. A Shroud and a Sword are believed to be in Europe at this time. The latter makes its bearer an invincible leader of men while the former is rumoured to bring the dead back to life. It would be impossible to say which one is more valuable or which one is now lost to us. Still, I must make a note of the date of the destruction.

Behind me, on the other side of the room, on a desk with a broken drawer lock, are three more reminders of how completely we have failed: a week-old copy of the _New-York Gazette_ containing the announcement of Haytham Kenway’s marriage, the bill of lading for a ship of food and other supplies Chevalier is sending to Port-au-Prince in response to a request from Adewalé, and a letter from one of my brother Mentors on the other side of the world congratulating me on the acquisition of the manuscript, written before the news that the same was lost in the Lisbon Earthquake was sent out - the two letters crossed each other on the high seas.

Chevalier needs my approval before he can send the ship off and he has already been waiting for two days but I have not yet decided whether or not Liam should be on that ship when it sails. Liam has always been even-tempered and resilient in the face of obstacles but he still has not regained his footing. Just days ago he snapped at Hope in front of the handful of novices she was training and so I sent her back to New York to put some distance between them.

As for the newspaper, Liam has seen a copy but we have not spoken of it.

“You asked for me, Mentor?”

There he is, standing just outside the door, a dusting of snow still on his boots and thighs, respectful and reluctant. He has not set foot in this room since that day in December. A lifetime ago.

“Yes, come in, Liam.”

He obeys, ducking his head as he always does as he passes through the doorway then comes to stand at a respectful distance, contemplating the maps, his towering shadow darkening the wall and part of the ceiling.

Liam is magnificent. He has always been magnificent.

When we met he was only a boy of twelve but it was already possible to see the man of thirty he has become, fulfilling every ambition and every hope I had for him. Nobody holds him responsible for what has happened but Liam himself is still struggling with it and though his shoulders are broad, he has burdened them with the entirety of the blame for this failure and I worry they may not take the strain.

“The _Switchblade_ will sail soon.”

“Aye, I’ve been helping the lads load her.”

“I thought you might like to help unload her as well.”

“Unload her…?”

“I am sure Adewalé would be glad of your help. There is still much to be done in Port-au-Prince.”

“You’re sending me away?”

He swells in anger, neck, shoulders, forearms, fists clenching, like a bull preparing to charge a real and physical danger. His is the sort of strength that commands the highest prices at slave auctions only to be constantly beaten down and distrusted by their masters because it does _not_ belong to a dumb animal and because no matter how much people like Liam bow and obey, resistance and rebellion lies in the very marrow of their bones.

Kesegowaase and Adewalé are very like him - lions who have learnt to control their strength.

Of course Liam has never and will never be a slave but the appearance that he is so admired for and the pattern of speech that he has not changed mark him out as surely as Adewalé’s skin and the brand on his chest mark him and despite all his natural advantages, Liam is given barely more consideration outside the circle of his own kinsmen and our small community than my skin and I am.

“I am not sending you away, child, and I am not punishing you. But you know as well as I do that our hands will be tied for several more months. Why not spend a few weeks with Adewalé and Mackandal? They still need help, Adewalé says so in his letter. Go, help them train their new recruits, make some new contacts.”

“Haytham Kenway will not spend the next four months sitting in the Jamaican sun and being idle.His truce is a pretence! He has the manuscript and he has bought himself six months to plan a way to get the box too! And once he has it - he has _Shay_ , Achilles, and he has Franklin!”

“Liam, we do not know that Kenway has the manuscript. You said yourself that Shay did not have it when you found him. We will keep searching the area, if it can be found we have a much better chance of finding it than Kenway does.”

“Kenway _must_ have it! You know he must! Why else would he _marry_ Shay? Shay _bought_ Kenway’s protection and all the comforts of his new life with the manuscript!”

“Kenway’s interest in Shay is of a different nature, Liam.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I believe it is possible. Shay is attractive…”

“And he was my mate.”

“Yes.”

“Aye, but all the same, one doesn’t exclude the other. Would Kenway keep a trained assassin under his roof and keep him in such luxury just to spite me? _Marry_ him?”

“No, but perhaps there was another reason why they had to be married so hastily.”

Silence then Liam’s shadow wavers wildly as he takes a step backwards.

He cannot believe it. And no wonder. We have always known that Shay, with his narrow hips and infrequent heats, so careless and accident-prone, would be difficult to breed - it was one of my main objections to their marriage. In the seven years they were together they never conceived once that I know of, though I suppose Shay could have miscarried so early we none of us noticed it.

The only thing that can make the idea of Haytham Kenway impregnating Shay in the space of two weeks seem more absurd than it already is is knowing that it is actually possible. To a man as ruthless as Haytham Kenway, willing to use whatever means and violence necessary, just one night - the right night - would have been enough.

And if he had known that Shay was Liam’s intended, that would have been reason enough, though I too am surprised that he went as far as to marry Shay. Still, there is no knowing how long that will last. The pregnancy may not come to term, as often happens with omegas. Andfor a man like Kenway it would be easy to get a divorce, renounce the child, leave them both destitute.

Liam is incapable of such a thing. Incapable of even thinking it.

But even if we had wanted to save Shay from himself, he is out of our reach now. Kenway’s threat was not an idle one and stealing an alpha’s child is even worse than stealing his mate. A Kenway mate would be worth a couple of thousand pounds, a child even more, especially a male child. No, Shay is lost.

“Did Kenway tell you that? That- that Shay is…?”

“He gave me to understand that it was possible, that he had already…”

“Would he-? But why? Why _Shay_?!”

Liam too is lost.

I had hoped that the past few weeks had given him enough time to digest the shock of the marriage, that he would have accepted it and that I could have spared him this. But this Liam is not the same Liam who left for New York all those weeks ago, full of saintly patience and confident that he would find Shay and bring him and the manuscript back. This Liam is irascible, withdrawn and inscrutable, and he and I, once able to understand each other at the merest glance, have done nothing but misunderstand each other since his return.

But I think that even this Liam still cares for this Brotherhood as much as I do, somewhere in him he is still the same Liam who built it with me, who brought to it some of its best recruits. My losses, this Brotherhood’s losses, are all his losses. Shay’s loss too, which he must bear alone. I never fully understood their relationship, not even Hope did.

Yes, I suppose there were always things that I did not fully understand and things that I did not fully know of. It never mattered until now. But this Liam still hasrope burns on his wrists and perhaps other hidden, secret wounds we cannot see.

“Shay has the Sight and I do not think he would have lied if Kenway had asked him about it. That alone would have been reason enough to spare him. It is a precious gift.”

Yes, Liam sees now. After all, he too knows that Haytham Kenway’s father was an Assassin, trained by my own Mentor, and that he possessed the Sight. Shay, with all his limitations and flaws, his disobedient nature and low fertility, still represents an opportunity for Kenway, the chance to have a Templar child with Assassin blood.

“Go to Port-au-Prince, child, and in a few months’ time we’ll see where we are. This may all come to nothing.”

Liam glances away, frowning at the map of Saint Domingue.

He knows I am right. In three or four months’ time the sting of the marriage will have faded, it may have become obvious that there is no child, Kenway may have realised that he is not likely to ever have one by Shay. The manuscript may have come to light somewhere and we can make plans to recover it, if we do not already have it. In the meantime, Port-au-Prince and its Brotherhood still need rebuilding, they are still recruiting and training replacements for those who were lost during the earthquake. Mackandal’s man never resurfaced but someone must have helped him prepare for his expedition to recover the Piece of Eden, perhaps Liam can trace the location of the underwater temple. There may be something to recover in the ruins.

When he turns to me, his jaw is set.

“I’d rather stay here. We need to spend the next six months preparing. If the Templars have the manuscript then I’ll find it, if they come for the box then I’ll defend it. What I won’t do is waste time doing less important things.”

I could deny him. I could order him to go. Liam has always been completely obedient and he knows - he _must_ realise - that I have only ever wanted the best for him. It is why I have given him so many responsibilities, why I let him try to start a family with Shay and also why I kept him from committing to an omega that might not have been able to give him everything he wants and deserves.

But this Brotherhood will be his someday, Liam was always destined to be Mentor after me. Perhaps he is right and his place is here, with his Brothers, securing the future and reputation of his Brotherhood.

“Very well. Tell Chevalier I would like to see him.”

Liam nods and when I see the expression on his face I am moved to tell him that he has not disappointed me but before I can find the words, he has gone.

As I wait for Chevalier, I too look at the map, at Port-au-Prince. We are not the only ones to have suffered setbacks. And we may still be reproached for not sharing the information we had with our Portuguese counterparts and not telling them of our plans when I sent Shay.

The sounds of Chevalier’s boots on the corridor’s hardwood floor precede him.

“So, Liam is not coming to Saint Domingue.”

“You do not sound surprised.”

Chevalier shrugs.

“It would be better for him if he came with me but since Shay came back from _Lisbonne_ , Liam doesn’t know what’s best for him anymore. I never understood what he saw in that silly boy, I thought it was just - how do you say? - _amouraché_ , a boyhood affection. But perhaps he was more… _enamouré_ than I believed. Or perhaps it is something else entirely.”

He wanders over to the table where his bill of lading is waiting and as he reaches for it his hand hovers over the folded newspaper before he picks it up, opening it with a lazy flick, leaning his hip against the table.

“So, it was true. Haytham Kenway, Grand Master of the Templar Order, married to our cabbage farmer. _Ça, pour use surprise_ …”

He looks up from the newspaper a moment. Aside from myself, Chevalier is the only one who knows it all. It should have been Liam.

“Did you tell him?”

“About the possibility of a child? Yes, I thought it might convince him to go.”

“It might have done just the opposite. Kesegowaase might be right, perhaps Liam is having trouble letting go, cutting his losses. Perhaps we all are.”

He turns over a page slowly.

“Kesegowaase is going north, I am going south. If Hope does not do anything stupid and if Liam stays here to rebuild the homestead, we can keep to Kenway’s terms.”

“Liam thinks that he has the manuscript and is just buying time.”

“Could be. But perhaps we are mistaken about that too. Shay may be an _imbécile_ but he was always an attractive one. For years I thought that was Liam’s reason for putting up with him. Perhaps he really is Kenway’s taste.”

“You think so?”

“What I think does not matter now. But what I _know_ is that we were fortunate this time. We don’t have Shay but we got Liam back without a fight and no more losses. We will not be so lucky next time, Kenway will be watching us - he is waiting for us to break the terms, he is expecting us to. It would be stupid of us to take risks. Not just ourselves but for our allies too. The French will not thank us for bringing them war any sooner and if we are to help them and them us, we cannot afford to anger them now.”

“So we do nothing?”

“We continue to look for the manuscript, we continue to watch Kenway and his Templars, we keep to the terms. If we see anything strange or if we discover he has the manuscript and we have a chance to take it then - well, once the war officially starts and the fighting really starts, it will be more difficult to say what is a direct attack and what is just the normal course of war. For now, we must strengthen our forces. Our men have fallen out of training in the last month and more, tell Liam to drill them, send the better ones north to Kesegowaase so they can experience real warfare. The manuscript is important, _c’est vrai_ , but even if we knew where it was now we could not get it. We have grown weak. Liam is weak.”

“Talk to Liam, Chevalier. Maybe you can convince him to go with you.”

Chevalier pushes himself off the table, throwing down the paper and picking up the bill of lading before leaving, his boots loud on the floorboards.

“I will. But he will not change his mind. He has an _idée fixe_ now.”

No, probably not. Something is driving Liam. For better or worse, he will stay here.


	5. John | Giving in & Getting On With It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having accepted Haytham’s patronage, John tries to settle into his new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rounding off the exposition chapters, back to more plot soon!  
> A million thanks for all the comments and kudos! <3

**JOHN**

_Kenway House, New York, February 1756_

 

A last shaft of sunlight pierces through the mid-afternoon brume and as it fills the orangerie with amber light we each look up - Kenway from his journals and papers, Cormac from his naval charts and I from my medical tome.

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”

Cormac smiles at me then stands, shrugging off blankets and shawls to go to one of the large windows, turning to smile in childish delight at Haytham and me, and Haytham walks over to join him, whispers in his ear and kisses his hair so lightly Shay doesn’t even notice. The man is still smitten.

These are what Shay calls the doldrums, the hollow hours of the afternoon before sundown, and we’ve fallen into the habit of coming together here to sit and study or work. Shay loves the orangerie, probably because it’s the closest he’s allowed to the outside, barring the two one-and-a-half hour sessions of exercise and fresh air he’s allowed each day. I permit it - it’s as warm here as in the house and at this stage I’m more worried about blows to his morale than to his health.

“Perhaps we could go out for just a half hour of fresh air before dinner, John?”

And perhaps Haytham is worried about the same thing.

“Yes, just a walk down to the farms then back. I can check on my patient. And Shay, dress warm.”

A month after I was first called here to care for Shay Cormac and I’m well on my way to becoming as permanent a house guest as Gist and Weeks are - more so as I live in the ‘big house’ with the master himself. A master who is newly-wed to a mate he barely knows and yet somehow they’ve contrived to make me completely comfortable and welcome and in many ways it has been a revelation.

Even so,I know they’re both anxious to be allowed the intimacies that their married state now sanctions but I don’t want to put Cormac’s health at risk now he’s so close to a full recovery - really, I’ve rarely seen such resilience.

As we head outside and pass some of the other buildings, I’m reminded that soon I’ll also be able to give them the privacy they must also yearn for since I finally caved and agreed to move into one of the bungalows on the estate, just next to the one Gist and Weeks occupy. Less than a month ago it was in an appalling state but just this morning, Gist, who oversaw the works, told us that I may be able to move in by the end of the week.

And this because Shay volunteered his idle crew to help. A master carpenter, a smith, a sailmaker, their assistants, and as many willing hands as there was standing room for soon had the place refurbished and furnished and we were just waiting for the paint to dry and for the last finishing touches. The men joke that having cleaned up Fort Arsenal and doing Meadow’s place they have enough experience to take up a new line of work and even Barrington once unbent so far as to agree.

Most of the snow on the ground has melted away, subsisting where it has been piled off the tracks and in the corners of buildings where the sun never reaches and on the thatch roofs, faded away just around the chimeys.

Haytham and I go on ahead as Shay wanders off into the birches. He likes to touch their bark and sometimes pulls off a glove for a surreptitious feel while Haytham pretends not to see.

“Do you expect supper to be a big affair?”

“No, although I’d remind you that the DeLanceys are bringing a party tomorrow. But tonight should be fairly quiet. Sir Charles asked if he and James Cook might join us. I expect he wants to discuss the blockade with Shay.”

Yes, but the governor’s avuncular manner towards Shay is nothing like the respect he shows Haytham. And what Haytham means by mentioning the DeLanceys is that he thinks I should be there, to cultivate my social standing in the city. One of the responsibilities that has come with the many advantages bestowed on me, and one that has already borne fruit since Kenway’s is no longer the only fine carriage to occasionally be found stationed outside my surgery.

“I’ll be there.”

Now I breakfast and often sup with the Kenways, by the same token socialising with Haytham’s wide circle of acquaintances. I have the use of his horses and the unmarked carriage whenever I need it, my cleaning, laundry and daily care are seen to by his people. He even argued me out of paying rent, asking for services _in lieu_ , which leaves me responsible only for the upkeep of the bungalow and his health, along with that of Shay, Gist, Weeks, the people in the big house as well as the rest of the estate and the whole of the _Morrigan_ ’s crew.

Yes, myriad advantages and yet it’s taken me a while to adjust. When I slept above the surgery I was always on call and my absences from the surgery, the periods of unavailability they represent, irked me. But two days ago, as we were taking Shay for his walk through the estate, Haytham pointed out that the estate comprises nearly three hundred souls and the _Morrigan_ ’s regular crew makes up another hundred, as many potential patients as any overworked man of medicine could possibly want. Sure enough, in the middle of last night I was woken to set the leg of a farmhand who slipped in the mud chasing pigs that had panicked and tried to bold, frightened by one of the patrolling guard dogs when it got loose.

Shay catches up to us, gloved and happy, then goes on ahead, a spring in his long-legged stride, calling out when he reaches ahalf-smashed pig pen.

“Is this the place?”

Yes. This morning Haytham thanked me briefly but from the way he follows Shay to view the pigs, hands clasped behind his back, I can see he intends to do and say no more than he already has.

Nor should he.

My respect for Kenway, initially shaken, has only strengthened and is now doubled by admiration. Kenway’s wealth, his society connections, his easy, pleasant manner, had all led me to take him for a gentleman with an interest in philanthropy, which was what brought us together - no more. But his expectation that I work hard, that I be essentially on call all the time here, just as I would have been at my surgery, is merely a reflection of the high standard to which he holds himself.

Now that I know him better, that I’ve spent so long under his roof, I know that his coolness and distance are merely a veneer and that in reality he toils almost ceaselessly for the benefit of those he thinks it his responsibility to protect - Shay, me, his people up at the house, now the farmhands who raise the cows, pigs, geese, who provide the eggs, apples, beans for his table, the people of New York, of the Colonies, the British, the Scotch, the Irish, the Mohawk, the free blacks and the slaves.

And despite my resolution to always keep my own independence and stay aloof from these ideologies, I’m increasingly drawn to Haytham’s vision of how they might be put into practice.

The leg is as well as can be expected - a clean break, I expect no complications if it is rested as long as it should be - and we turn back to the house in the growing gloom and just in time to hear the clatter of hooves beneath the _porte cochère_.

It is the governor, arrived a little early for dinner with Captain Cook in tow, and we all converge in the octagonal mud room, familiar greetings bandied about as we divest ourselves of boots, cloaks, scarves and gloves.

The governor frets at Shay being out after dark and in the rising damp in a way that verges on the ridiculous when one remembers that if he had his way, Shay might already be at the helm of his ship, more likely wet through than damp, and as soon as we’re in the drawing room poor Shay is bundled up in his blankets and settled, reclining, onto a couch - the one Barrington calls the _veilleuse_. 

Their concern for him, however, hasn’t stopped them from getting straight to business.

“Naturally, the blockade cannot be made official until we or France declare, and Loudoun is still skeptical about the need for it, although he’s launched an quiet investigation to see if the same sort of thing is going on in Virginia. Considering the brisk trade in tobacco they do down there, I’d be surprised if Virginia doesn’t have an even bigger problem than we do here with trade to the French and their West Indian plantations.”

The governor turns to Shay and smiles.

“You won’t need to wait, however. We have several contracts lined up for you if you want them - convoy duty, not nearly as exciting but perhaps it is for the best that we ease you back into the fray. Some of our brigs and frigates will be running up and down the coast on similar errands, that will give you a chance to practice your signals and try a few manoeuvres, I daresay.”

“Thank you, Sir Charles. You’re always too generous.”

“Oh, you have Cook here to thank for most of it, and your own master who is in the Company’s good books.”

Kenway gives a slow nod.

“I had letters of introduction and James DeLancey was good enough to bring me to the attention of a few key people when I arrived.”

“He’s a good man.”

We all look up as a footman appears to announce another guest.

“Master Benjamin Franklin.”

We had not been expecting him for days yet and before the astonishment can dissipate the man himself steps in, offering belated season’s greetings and pleasantries.

Sir Charles is beaming at meeting the great man so much sooner than anticipated and Kenway quickly makes introductions, noting that in truth both men know each other already by reputation and through their correspondence.

I too know Benjamin Franklin by reputation, I expect few men of breeding and education do not. Kenway has also told me that Franklin is a Grand Master of the Freemasons and that consequently the two of them have a similar understanding of the world and compatible visions of the future they want to build.

“And this my close friend, Doctor John Meadows. He’s hoping to set up a clinic specialising in women and omegas, which I fully support.”

“Really? We shall have to see how we can help you, Dr. Meadows. Have you been taking care of this new mate of Master Kenway’s I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“I have but he reflects no credit on me, Master Cormac is the perfect patient.”

We all turn to Shay who is still all wrapped up in mohair over his silks and wearing the look of a rabbit putting on a brave front.

“Shay! I’d been told the name but never made the connection. Is it really you?”

“Master Franklin, how are you?”

Franklin settles by Shay so we all rearrange the seating.

“I’m fine, thank you! And you, Shay? You look… both better and worse than when we last met. What happened to you?”

“Shay is recovering from a severe bout of pneumonia, Dr. Meadows has been kind enough to stay here and care for him. Have you and Shay met before?”

“Oh my, yes. Master Cormac was kind enough to help me with my experiments. I trust Mistress Hope is well.”

“Aye, I think so.”

Poor Shay looks quietly miserable and I’m about to intervene when Kenway moves onto the couch by Shay and puts a hand on his knee before engaging with Franklin, drawing the conversation away.

“And you, Master Franklin? How come you to be in New York?”

“Ah! I was invited to a few of the same dinners as that fool governor of ours, Morris, and he so exasperated me I thought I’d come and see if my New York friends would be more reasonable.”

The conversation shifts to the situation in Pennsylvania and Franklin’s efforts in its defence and talk continues seamlessly as we go through to dinner, joined by Gist and Weeks. As a frontiersman, Gist has seen something of the same violence and his anecdotes and tales adds some colour to Franklin’s more scientific, humanist account. Kenway and the governor listen gravely while Shay looks nothing short of wretched but still with that hard glint of stoicism that never really leaves him.

They all agree to reconvene for a dinner with Johnson in couple of days to revisit the issue and sketch out a viable and wider-ranging plan of action, circling around to the need to control Quebec and the St Lawrence river, and at the end of the meal, in the library, as we linger over sherry and walnuts and Shay over his spiced milk tea, Kenway, Sir Charles and Captain Cook share a quick, conspirational glance before Kenway begins to speak nonchalantly.

“Speaking of your future travels, Shay, there’s something I’d like to show you.”

Shay quickly drains the last of his tea and sets down his teacup to signal his readiness.

Moving down to the far side of the library, towards the writing desk, we go to the door opposite the one leading to Kenway’s study - a door that Shay has never seen used.

Kenway pauses, his hand on the door handle, and smiles at his mate.

“Since you have already put so much effort into planning campaigns, trips and charting new waters, I thought it was about time you had a space of your own for the work you do.”

And with this he pushes open the door to reveal what we’ve spent the last few weeks referring to in quiet whispers as The Map Room.

Spellbound, Shay steps in, instinctively going to the large central flat desk on which sits his scale model of the _Phantom Queen_ and touching it gently, then looks all around himself. James Cook joins him, puts a hand on his elbow and shows him around a room that he has had a large hand in designing and whose deep royal blue walls are almost entirely hidden behind the gleaming wood and glass cabinets that now house the Kenways’ extensive collection of books relating to naval matters, exploration, cartography, as well as all their maps, some laid out in shallow, velveteen-lined drawers, others rolled and sorted into cross-shelved cubby holes, while the most important have been mounted like scrolls onto large brass cylinders and Cook demonstrates, with the aid of a curve-ended rod, how they can be hung from one of the many hooks along the top of the cabinets, as well laid out on the vast table.

Kenway and Sir Charles look on indulgently.

Naturally, this is intended to be a study of sorts for Shay but this natural extension to the library is also destined to be a convenient reference room kept open and available for Cook and his fellow captains.

Franklin turns to me.

“And you, doctor? This was has not even really started and we’re already in need of doctors, and I daresay we’ll need hundreds more like you before it’s over.”

Yes. This too has been on my mind. My work is important and many of the great ladies I’ve met have shown far more interest in it than I’d expected. Even I can see that I should make the most of it, as Kenway would advise, and that dropping things now might set my efforts back month, even years. But if there is to be a war effort then I must be part of it.

“I had hoped Captain Cormac might allow me to accompany him on some of his trips. It would allow me some field experience.”

Dragging his attention away from the wonder around him, Shay inclines his head.

“Couldn’t be happier, doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to a bit of Shaytham in the next chapter! <3


	6. Haytham | Uxorious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As ever buried in paperwork, Haytham does what he can to secure Shay’s future and present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I totally forgot a mini-scene at the end of the last chapter - it's been added now, sorry sorry sorry!  
> To make up for it, there will probably be another chapter up today :) 
> 
> In this chapter, a bit of Shaytham, a lot of backstory for Haytham, and my favourite kink - paperwork! <3  
> Haytham's backstory is largely drawn from the events of Forsaken, which I haven't read *yet* (Yes, Becky, I know! Sorry!) but in any case has been reworked a little to suit. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! <3

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, February 1756_

 

A cramp forces me to drop my quill back its tray and hold up my hand, balling my fist then stretching my fingers a few times, casting a dancing shadow over the papers on my desk.

My entire morning was spent in the library with Barrington, my secretary, my steward, the estate manager for my Virginia property, my lawyer, and my man of business here in New York, in a quarterly review of my holdings - not just this house, its grounds and its people, but my whole estate, which now spans two continents and includes ships that sail to a few others and which has been in upheaval for more than a year.

After breaking for lunch, I returned to the calm and quiet of my study, reviewing and signing the pile of related paperwork. Shay is bedded down on the couch with a book, within glancing distance. He no longer needs extended periods of rest or to be bundled up quite so thoroughly but I’ve been slow to relinquish him.

My half-sister, Jennifer, has decided to stay on in the family house in Queen Anne’s Square in London, keeping on what members of staff had decided not to follow me across the Atlantic. Her share of our inheritance will be held in trust for her, making her financially independent. We had discussed an allowance, which would have been even less trouble for her, but I understand why she cannot bear to feel dependent on another person, especially not a man, not even a brother. I initially offered a far more generous amount - under Birch’s watchful eye and nurturing hand the handsome legacy our parents left us became a small fortune - but Jennifer wanted no more than would have come to her from our father.

My estate is such that it could have readily borne the excision but now it is being more than doubled by the addition of Reginald Birch’s own estate, larger than mine ever was and which has come to me almost entire as his sole heir. Jennifer was so horrified by the idea of Birch having in some way handled the money that has now come to her that it seemed more than a matter of mere delicacy to have her due taken out before the Kenway and Birch assets are irrevocably melded.

Raising my gaze I let it rest a moment on my mate, still deeply engrossed in his book.

Shay has always known that I am wealthy but we’ve never discussed the particulars. Raised by Assassins, he shares their exaggerated notions of Templar affluence but I think even he would have been alarmed by the reality of mine if he’d known of it when we married. True to nature, Shay encouraged me to be generous, to press Jennifer into also accepting what my mother would have wanted her to have. As for the Kenway-Birch fortune, it redefines even _my_ conceptions of personal wealth. It will take the better part of the coming year to consolidate and streamline the various combined holdings, assets, investments, properties, and so on. One of Reginald’s business managers was to come to the colonies to help us in this reorganisation but the impending war has already delayed that visit indefinitely.

_Jennifer, Reginald, Shay._

These relationships are now enshrined in stacks of paper, ties of law replacing ties of blood. Jennifer and I had moments of understanding while we were following the trail that eventually led back to Reginald Birch but the moment he died - the moment _we_ killed him to avenge our parents and ourselves - the fragile connection between brother and sister was broken. I harbour no illusions on this point. Jennifer and I were never close - partly, I suppose, because of the age difference, but mostly for all the same reasons she always chose to be known as Jennifer _Scott,_ taking her mother’s maiden name, rather than Jennifer Kenway. My decision to remain a Templar even after learning the truth about Birch only increased the distance between us. This trust fund is the last remaining link between us.

As part of our marriage contract, I signed a similar set of papers so that a similar trust would be set up for Shay in the event of my death and one of the stacks of paper on my desk contains the amendments necessary to reflect our recent changes in circumstances. The deeds to the _Morrigan_ and Fort Arsenal - which I consider his dowry - would revert back to him in full and so from a financial standpoint Shay would be very comfortable. Almost too well off. Nominally, Barrington is the principal trustee but he is also one of the beneficiaries of my will, creating a slight conflict of interest, and though he’s an alpha, well-connected within the Order and known to many of the historic Grand Masters, he is advancing in age and I would have preferred him to be able to retire fully if he wished it. And I would be easier knowing Shay and his interests would be under the protection of a powerful, worldly man who could guide and advise him as well as manage his interests.

I would have liked to leave him in the care of a Reginald Birch.

The sister who is a stranger to me killed a man who should have been little more than a stranger and yet was a father to me in every possible way. While I was studying at the schools his influence had bought me entrance into, being cared for and raised by a man he handpicked for the job and who has stayed with me as my closest confidant ever since, Reginald was looking after my inheritance, planning my future and doing everything necessary to pave my way. And for what? He killed my father for knowledge, sent Jennifer away to protect it and himself. But me? He had no need to encumber an already busy life with a ten-year-old child and his treatment of Jennifer and my knowledge of his character make me think it was not out of a sense of guilt. So why? Not to make me _like_ him, but to make me _better_ than him, to give me everything it was in his power to give and to bring me to full potential. The very ideal of the selfless father.

Perhaps that’s what Jennifer most resents. That even after he caused our father’s death and sold her into slavery, Reginald Birch was a better father to me than ours had ever been to her. And quite possibly to me.

Can all the betrayals outweigh what he’s done for me? I wouldn’t have all I have or be what I am if it hadn’t been for Reginald Birch. And he was not wrong about me. After all this I have still chosen to side with the Templars, I am still considered his heir and spiritual son. After all this I can’t be sure I would have killed him if it had been left up to me. And I can’t be sure that I don’t regret his death. I adored my father as a child and his loss has defined my life but for years now I’ve been able to look back and judge him as an adult rather than as a child. The will to be a good father was there but if action could be substituted by mere intention the world would be a much better place. The results of Reginald Birch’s actions are everywhere I look - in Barrington, in this house, in my position as Grand Master, in my very flesh and the firings of my mind. He could not be more a part of me if I really had been of his blood. I feel it and I know he did too, until his final moments.

After another wishful glance at Shay, I reach for the final letter in my tray, the one I’ve left for last. It bears a familiar seal, that of the Grand Master of the Parisian Rite and more widely of the French Rite, and I know what it will contain before reading it. Sure enough, it is merely the latest in a series of increasingly pressing invitations for me to become one of ‘the Nine’, as the Order’s Inner Sanctum is affectionately referred to by those who know of it. It is a role I have always been destined for, the logical next step after becoming Grand Master and a natural fit since I would be filling the seat left vacant by the man who raised me almost for this sole purpose. However, Reginald Birch’s premature death means this promotion comes much earlier than anticipated - I have been Grand Master for just eighteen months, of a Rite barely as old, in a landscape of escalating conflict.

This is not the right time and yet the other eight know what I know, that the hostility here is already spreading and will soon engulf the whole world in war. Our internal council must be as solid as possible and, in all humility, there is nobody who could fill Birch’s place as well as I and at such short notice. It is an open secret that as Reginald’s protégé, I have unofficially been kept abreast of even the most sensitive information and the council’s inner workings. Things have come to such a crisis that my sudden marriage to an Assassin so freshly turned that he still occasionally reaches for a hood he no longer wears caused not the slightest difficulty, though it does raise another problem since I don’t want any of the other Grand Masters to investigate Shay too closely in case they should discover that he had the manuscript.

In the immediate aftermath of Reginald’s death and with me being so conveniently in Europe they had pressed me to take his place at the head of the British Rite and I wore out my powers of rhetoric - and very nearly my patience - convincing them that it would be easier to find a suitable replacement for Reginald in England than it would be to find one for me in the Colonies. For the four months since, I have been holding off accepting the nomination to the Sanctum but my position is untenable, not only because another refusal from me will not stem the barrage of messages any more successfully than the previous eight have, but because I can no longer truly justify it to myself. War imperils the Order and I cannot do any less than my utmost to protect it.

With a sigh, I lean back in my chair and rub my temples.

“What does ‘uxorious’ mean?”

Shay is watching me, wearing that spurious look of perfect innocence of his. It melts into a smile as I come over to sit by him and lean over for a long kiss.

“Who’s been saying that about me?”

Shay dark eyes go wide.

“How did you know?”

“Well, you didn’t find it in _The Spirit of the Laws_. It means ‘excessively devoted to one’s wife or mate’.”

“Really?”

“Do you doubt the meaning or the sentiment?”

Shay, silent, still, watches me in naked contentment. He still has moments of doubt and insecurity but now, while he looks into my eyes, he knows.

“Nothin’ excessive about it.”

“Well, it seems one person at least disagrees with you. Who was it?”

“Captain Colby. Asked me how my uxorious master was.”

“And what did you answer to that?”

Shay’s gaze drops.

“Said you were fine.”

I muffle a bubble of laughter against his hair.

Hardly a surprise. After the governor’s ball my reputation as being smitten, even jealous, has spread quickly and by now has become well-established, just as I’d intended. Easy to believe, for most people. After all, what else could account for my marrying a nobody from nowhere I fished out of a jail cell if not the powerful pull of lust and that whole and instant attraction alphas are so legendarily prone to. My friends and close acquaintances - and even Shay himself, on occasion - have been a little surprised by it, unused as they are to seeing me so emotionally demonstrative in public. I regret the necessity for it, Shay is neither a plaything nor a caprice nor even helpless in the face of an insult or unwanted attention, but a wealthy, powerful, proprietorial master is the completest protection a mate or wife can have.

Gazing at Shay now, I’m reminded that I don’t know myself how much of it is pretence and how much truth. Trying to analyse my feelings for Shay is like looking directly at the sun - blinding. Far more effective to make out their contours obliquely by testing their limits and by the shadows they cast. And I’m not fooled by Shay’s cheerful patience.

“I have a letter to write but if you ask for your chaise now, when I’m finished we could try it out and go down to Fort Arsenal so you can finally show me around that ship of yours.”

Another blinding look of joy and a little over an hour later we’re at Fort Arsenal and the thrill of speed I felt in Shay’s delightful new curricle, painted and varnished to an impossible shine and pulled by two of Reginald’s horses, has already helped chase my sombre thoughts.

We only have one postillion with us and as soon as we pull up to the fort, the men, recognising the Kenway crest on the side of it, immediately draw around to hand Shay down and help manage the hot-blooded horses. A murmur runs through them and a couple run off to the Fort and Gist soon appears, grinning from ear to ear, Jones, more moderate, just a step behind.

“Shay! Master Cormac! Welcome! Come, come, we just finished tarring the hull!”

Gist and the others draw Shay away to show him this and that improvement, how closely and how well his instructions have been followed, and I fall back a little, relishing the way they fawn over him while remaining rigidly respectful, so evidently eager for his approval.

Fort Arsenal is Shay’s and he spends several hours a day in conference with Gist, teaching and training him up to be his second-in-command, giving orders for men, advising Gist on how to handle them and resolve any disputes between them. Cook too has been in and out of both Kenway House and Fort Arsenal, acting as counsel and go-between and he’s told me in no uncertain terms that Shay is a very able and much-beloved captain. I know all this, and yet I was unprepared for the happy bustle and warm atmosphere that permeates Fort Arsenal. There are men cleaning the window, a couple are beating out carpets, the carpenter and his mates are building what already looks like a low settee, and one man on the _Morrigan_ has polished some small brass item to such a high shine that when he puts it back in place it catches the light and blinds me for a moment.

Beaming and radiant, Shay saunters back to me, eager to show me around.

“Thought we’d have to dry-dock or careen her to tar up her bottom and get some paint on her but Cook was right, there’s enough space in our little dock for a deep Parliamentary heel so they really have done all the tarring already. Thought I’d ask the lads to give her a fresh coat of paint as well.”

“Yellow?”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s fine but wouldn’t you like a change? Red, perhaps? And red sails. My father told me stories of pirate hunter ships in the Caribbean - always fast ships for their size, crewed and gunned for the one purpose - that had red sails and whenever a lookout called out he’d seen one they would all strain to see. The red sails were distinctive even as pinpricks on the horizon and the sight of them would always quicken their blood. Red sails with black ravens on them so you’ll enemies will knowas soon as you appear on the horizon that the _Phantom Queen_ is coming for them, bringing doom and destruction.”

Wide-eyed and pensive, heavey-lidded eyes dark, Shay holds my gaze a moment then finally turns back to his beloved ship.

“Aye, we’ll try it.”

We stand together a long moment, looking up at the _Morrigan_ , my only competition in Shay’s affections, as she towers above us, outlined against the falling light, and Shay’s hand slips behind me, to the small of my back, and I hold it there, clasped between mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * A chaise: A light-weight pleasure carriage, usually drawn by two horses. Also known as a shay in America. (Unfortunately phaetons hadn’t been invented yet.) A curricle is specifically a two-wheeled chaise. 
> 
> ** A postillion: On carriages that don't carry a coachman, the postillion or post-boy rides on the lefthand horse of the pair drawing the carriage and drives it from there.


	7. Hope | Back to Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in New York, Hope has some distance from the drama at the Homestead, but closer to all the happenings in the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNINGS FOR EXPLICIT CONTENT*

**HOPE**

_Greenwich, New York, February 1756_

 

Studying a map of upper New York by candlelight, I look over a plan I’m considering - taking over a small abandoned farmstead in King’s Farm on the west side, which would reestablish our influence in that sector, weakened since we lost what is now Kenway House. Ordinarily I wouldn’t think twice about an opportunity this good but our presence so close to the Grand Master’s house may be noticed. I’ve prepared some letters with instructions for our allies but I haven’t sent them yet.

I’d better ask Liam. He’ll know what Achilles would want and he’s due any day now.

Pushing away the papers, I perch on the edge of the table and my gaze wanders to the door of my office. Returning to New York was a relief but getting everybody back to work hasn’t been easy. The last few months have destabilised our forces and we’re all having trouble finding a way to act within the boundaries of the truce Achilles agreed to - a truce that throttles our range of action indefinitely, until the end of some hypothetical war that hasn’t even started yet.

Liam was slowly losing his mind over this, blaming himself for the absurd situation we’re in even though Achilles has told him time and time again that it wasn’t just for his sake. Achilles and he are still convinced Shay somehow traded the manuscript for his current _advantages_ \- if you can call them that - so Achilles is sending Liam here to keep watch over Kenway and the other New York Templars. I can’t help wondering if that now also includes Shay. Even if he’s not one of them, he’s not one of us anymore.

Of course, my people and I have been monitoring the situation in New York and I understand Achilles’ thinking, I know his sending Liam here doesn’t mean he doesn’t trust me do the job. Only I’ve been up to Kenway’s place to do my share of surveillance and I wonder if Achilles has thought about how Liam will react when _he_ sees Shay again. Kenway keeps the silly boy locked up in his gilded cage, only trotted out, groomed and beautifully dressed, to be shown off at the governor’s or Johnson’s. The few times he has gone down to Fort Arsenal it was a brand new little carriage bearing the Kenway coat of arms. Kenway wants nothing better than for Liam to see his former intended in all the trappings of an expensive whore.

I wonder if Shay still thinks the trade worthwhile.

If there ever was a trade. Only an alpha could think that losing one’s freedom and control over one’s body is somehow a reward and if Shay _is_ in bed with Kenway and pregnant by him, as Achilles and Liam suspect, it was probably not by choice. Even Shay, reckless and thoughtless as he is, must have realised that marriage to a Templar Grand Master would be nothing like the arrangement he had with Liam and that men like Kenway take every last thing they’re entitled to. In the same circumstances, I would have negotiated something very different in exchange for the manuscript. Shay has his limitations but he’s not Achilles or Kesegowaase - he’s Irish, the Order has myriad ways of helping him. The manuscript and the knowledge necessary to make the precursor box function would have been worth almost anything you could wish for - a new life with independent means anywhere in the world under the Order’s protection, a plantation complete with slaves somewhere in the West Indies, or a house and shares in one of their companies in London… Not to become Kenway’s plaything or used as a brood mare, to be degraded in private and paraded around in public like a war trophy for the initiated, surrounded by enemies in a city where he knows he is universally hated.

No, Liam may be partly right. If Shay told Kenway that he and Liam were intended, Kenway may have seen it a cheap way of humiliating Liam - Shay is attractive, if nothing else. Liam was livid when we saw the wedding announcement in the paper, especially since Kenway thought it necessary to have the news put into _every_ New York paper - and, as I later heard, even in the major Boston ones, but that I didn’t tell Liam. Until then we had wondered if Kenway had lied about the marriage, exaggerated his claim to Shay to force Achilles’ hand, only really intending to keep Shay as an amusement and to spite Liam until the novelty wore off. Some part of Liam may still believe it. Kenway seems to do everything he can to confirm the idea, rumour having spread throughout New York society that Master Kenway is besotted with his beautiful new mate. Why else this travesty of marital bliss? Surely the injury of taking Liam’s intended from him and the insult of granting him his freedom should have been enough. And the thought of Haytham Kenway Esq., Grand Master of the Colonial Rite of the Templar Order, marrying Shay - lapsed Assassin, would-be pirate and proven traitor - is too outlandish to be believed to begin with.

And yet, whatever his reasons, Kenway really did marry Shay. I’m sure of it. Even for Kenway, this is pushing spite and cruelty to absurd lengths. A man like Kenway could do infinitely better than Shay. He’s been one of the colonies’ most eligible bachelor since he arrived and could have had his pick of dowries in both Boston and New York.

I don’t know what to believe anymore. What seems clear is that Shay will be staying in New York and that Liam’s hands are tied for another four months at least. He’ll go mad with frustration before this is over.

A familiar, soft double-knock on the door.

_Liam._

“We expected you yesterday.”

Liam grins, closes the door behind himself and locks it very quietly.

I uncross my legs slowly and in a moment he’s standing between them, his mouth on mine. A few minutes of fumbling with clothes then I feel his fingers pressing into my thighs.

He pulls away to look into my eyes as his fingertips move upward and rubbing, stroking, caressing, before finally sinking _in_ while his thumb still rubs circles.

“I missed you, Hope.”

We have haven’t been together in months. With everything that happened neither of us was in the mood and besides we didn’t want to risk anybody noticing - not after we managed to keep it secret for years and not when Liam is supposed to be mourning Shay's loss.

Liam’s hands go to my hips and tugs sharply so they’re on the edge of the table and as he kneels down I lean back on my elbows, aching for the first touch of his tongue, and when it comes my entire being melts into that, that hot, rough, insistent tongue.

Liam is always thorough and by the time he pulls away to undo his breeches I’m more than ready for him. Oh, and Liam never looks more like the powerful alpha he is than when he stands like that, in the full glory of his manhood. Only I see him like this. My Liam, my beautiful alpha.

It’s been so long that there’s discomfort at first but when he starts to move it’s nothing but bliss and now I feel it too.

“I missed you too.”

He grabs my hips, pulling me up so he can go deeper, bending over me so we can kiss and cling to each other until he pushes me over the edge and I bite his shoulder to keep from crying out, allowing myself to mark him for the first time.

He should withdraw now as he usually does but instead he’s still thrusting, even harder than before, so I push at his chest.

“Liam? Liam, _stop_!”

I hit his shoulder and after a few more desperate thrusts he withdraws and stands, turning away slightly.

When he’s finished himself off he turns back to me, still tidying himself up.

“Sorry, Hope. I got carried away. It’s been so long.”

He comes over and puts his arms around me and I suddenly realise that he means its been a long time for _him_. These meeting always seem far apart to me but he’s used to having Shay to keep him going between one clandestine meeting and the next.

Liam rests his forehead against mine, cradling my face in his hands, a thumb rubbing my cheek.

We were attracted to each other from the first time we met and nobody has noticed it in all this time but I’m as sure of Liam’s feelings as I am of mine. We never spoke of it and never acted on it, until the day after he brought Shay to the homestead as a new recruit and his intended. That night, just like tonight, he came to my room in the dark and within minutes we were together, without saying a word about it. Liam, who has always been popular with women though never promiscuous, has not been seen with anyone but Shay since.

And we’ve never spoken of it since.

We never even spoke of it because we both knew that it could only lead to an argument, that a real relationship would have cost one of us something fundamental: my place among the Assassins or Liam’s dream of a family, because we cannot have both. And in truth, I’ve never desired children.

Liam’s arrangement with Shay was perfect. Shay, so reckless and so _sexually_ attractive, _needed_ the protection of an alpha like Liam - witness what has happened to him in just one month without it - and I still think he would have enjoyed raising a family given he’s friendly, energetic, fond of animals and good-natured in his own way. Liam’s engagement and eventual marriage to Shay made it clear that whatever there was between us was not that.

And that was enough. For seven years, that was enough for us.

But now Shay is gone, married to another, and I’m not sure where we go from here.

“There’s a project I wanted your advice on. We’ll need something to show for a night’s work together.”

“Aye, all right, show me.”

As he sits at the table he pulls me onto his lap. He’s never done this before and I allow it, leaning an arm along his broad shoulders. We’ve never been apart for so long and I missed him. Physically, of course, but also because he’d withdrawn from me after his return to the Homestead.

“So, where is it?”

I show him. It’s outside the city proper, in a sparsely-populated area of farms and fields and windmills - defensible but isolated, not far from the Kenway house and at almost equal distances from Fort Arsenal and this base in Greenwich.

“Aye, I could use it as a base while I’m here. I don’t foresee taking it will be too much trouble - you say the place is abandoned? But do you have some men you can post there? I don’t have enough people on my team to keep it manned watch on watch.”

I can spare the men but nothing good can come of Liam being in such close proximity to Shay and Kenway for days on end.

“No, it shouldn’t be a problem. I have all the plans made out and instructions written and ready to send out. But let’s post a few people there and see what happens. Kenway has bought up the farmland around the house almost up to this base we want. I’m sure most of this tenants are farmers but we should probably have our people observe a while, see if any of patrols go through there and if they react to people moving into the building. There’s a tavern nearby, in a busy part of town, you could stay there until we’re sure. Or you could stay here. I have a few other projects I’d like your opinion on.”

Liam considers, flattening his large hand over the creases in the map that run over Kenway house, and as his sleeve moves up it reveals the healing rope burns on his wrists.

He knows I’m right but he’s impatient to go. Not that there’s much to see.

“You could take your team up there tomorrow to reconnoitre. I’ve drawn up a map of the best places to keep watch. Kenway was smart about his defences, even seeing into the place is difficult and there is almost no direct line of sight into the house.”

I show him the map. Kenway was cunning and played on all of the estate’s natural advantages. The gardens run down to the edge of lake at the back of the property and can only be discreetly watched from one of the other shores at some distance. To the east, the estate flanks another large private residence and even though I managed to get one of my men hired as a gardener in there, it doesn’t give us much of a perspective. To the west are more gardens then farmland with a few footpaths through it but none sheltered enough for surveillance. No, the most luck we’ve had has been looking through telescopes from the rooftops of nearby buildings.

“Not much comes out of that house, Liam. Most of our information came to us from secondary sources.”

“And what have they told you so far?”

“Shay had pneumonia, just as Kenway said. Johnson, Franklin, young Washington, half the Royal Navy captains in New York and even the governor have all been there and spread the word. They were to the governor’s yuletide ball and all the society wives have called on him at the house but Shay didn’t leave the property again until a few weeks ago. A few social calls but mostly trips to Fort Arsenal, usually with two of Kenway’s men, a Jack Weeks and a frontiersman, a Christopher Gist.”

“Betas?”

“Weeks is. Gist is an alpha but also an alcoholic.”

Silence.

“You think they’re really married?”

“Yes. Lying to us is one thing but they would never be received at the governor’s if they were anything less than married. They would have gone to him for a special dispensation to marry that quickly.”

He nods slowly.

“Have you seen him? I mean really seen him. How did he look?”

_How did he look?_

Handsome, ruinous, monogrammed, manicured, almost pedigreed. The perfect living trophy for a man like Kenway.

“Expensive. Serious. Kenway keeps him on a short leash.”

“Do you think he could be pregnant?”

_Do I? Did I ever?_

Liam and Shay never conceived in all the years they were together - at least not long enough for it to be noticeable - which seemed to confirm Achilles’ reservations about Shay’s fertility. Could Kenway really have succeeded in weeks - perhaps mere days - where Liam failed for years?

“I don’t think Kenway actually meant that he is, only that…”

“That it was possible, aye.”

“I think he was just trying to rile you up.”

Liam takes my hand and presses a long, warm kiss into my palm.

“I really did miss you, acushla.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Shay! <3


	8. Shay | Underworked & Exhausted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally recovered, Shay gets back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry, was busy then sick but wanted to get a chapter out for Shay's birthday <3  
> <3 Happy Birthday, Shay! <3  
> Thank you for all the lovely comments! Hope you enjoy! <3 
> 
> Note: Some glum themes at the beginning but it improves, I promise XD

**SHAY**

_Greenwich, New York, February 1756_

 

“Ah, and where is your boss set up?”

“You can’t miss it! There’s always black smoke rising from the courtyard of that building.”

Looks like he’s telling the truth. Also looks terrified, squinting up at me, the sunlight in his eyes.

Spotted this gang member not far from Fort Arsenal and trailed him across most of Greenwich before he noticed and started running. Also threw a smoke bomb at me that make me cough and my eyes water so I’m not very happy with him but he’s young and he did help me - guess I’ll give him a second chance.

Before letting him go, I take the dark cloth wrapped around his neck. He was breathing through it, must help with that smoke.

I watch him scurry away then leap down off the rooftop, probably afraid I’ll change my mind.

Hopping from rooftop to rooftop, I make for the nearest church steeple and I can feel a satisfying burn in my muscles at the effort, even more when I start climbing up. Haven’t pushed myself like this in nearly two months. God, I’ve missed it.

Once I make it to the top I pause to feel the pain leach out of my body. Haven’t felt the wind’s bite or the sun’s heat beyond the top layer of my skin in nearly as long either.

Shading my eyes and looking southward, I can see a nearby column of smoke, and because it’s a clear day, I can spot several others around the city, and following the coastline northwards, I see a familiar set of masts. The _Morrigan_. And further north, close to Master Kenway’s estate, more smoke.

Guess Colonel Monro and Sir Charles were right - the gangs here really have taken over the city. Hope lost the mansion but she’s done well all the same.

The sun is baking warm on my back as I climb down the side sheltered from the wind then drop back down, hopping from one rooftop to the next towards the nearest column of smoke.

Didn’t believe it, when Sir Charles first told us what these gangs were doing. Every day he gets complaints from people who’ve been blackmailed, pressured into paying for protection, charged extortionate rates for bread, flour, eggs… Didn’t _want_ to believe it. Been so wrapped up in other things for the past six months that I didn’t even realise how much my city has changed. And I never knew what Hope’s people were doing in the city. Just another thing I didn’t know about my Brothers. Another thing I never bothered to ask about.

Sir Charles wants to help, wants to make the city safer and better, but he won’t send his Redcoats against these gangs because he doesn’t want to replace petty violence with blood in the streets.

A tile comes loose as I land in a soft crouch on the next roof and the weight and balance of by body shift as it slips out from under my heel and slides down the rest of the roof, falls and lands with a sharp crack on the pavement. Before my fingers brush the warm tiles, I’m steady on my feet again. Not bad but still not up to my old standards - Kesegowaase would have made me do squats and run training circuits for hours. I’ll do that tomorrow back at the house. By now they’re used to seeing me in the trees and on the buildings.

Sir Charles is right, of course. Didn’t understand it until he explained it, but then I don’t know anythin’ about how to run a city. Just like Sir Charles and Colonel Monro don’t really understand frontier warfare. They’re _British_ fighting men, used to files of soldiers and ships in lines of battle - men who can stand inches apart, looking each other in the eye as they pull the trigger. They don’t understand unplanned skirmishes, ambushes, armed men creeping into settlements in the dead of night armed with axes and knives, and killing the occupants by the dozen and enslaving those they spare.

Weeks later they’re still shocked by what happened at Fort Henry though things like that have been goin’ on in the frontier for decades. Hell, Schenectady* is here in New York and that was sixty-five years ago. It’s nothin’ new. But they’re used to naming a time and place for their battles, they can’t fathom that an attack can happen anywhere at any time, without warning and apparently without cause. And it’s not just that they’re shocked by the violence, they’re offended by the _idea_ of it - of takin’ advantage like that. Because they’re not just fighting men, they’re also honourable men. For them, war is like a game of checkers, they think it uncivilised to do battle at night or go to war in the winter. And they see no honour in knifing an unsuspecting person in the back, even if it is the enemy.

Landing on a flat-topped roof, I nearly trip over a scrawny little tabby sunning herself and who comes and winds herself between my legs, so I give her a rub and a pat before continuing on.

S’pose they’re right. It’s not honourable. But it gets the job done and that’s all people here care about. The colonists and the natives whose lands are threatened, they’re not playin’ at war and they’re not tryin’ to act civilised, they’re just fightin’ to survive, to protect their livelihoods and feed their families and keep a roof over their heads - they always have cause.

The colonel and Sir Charles and others like them, they think the Scalp Act** passed in New York back in ’47 during King George’s War was barbaric and unworthy of their Empire, they’re privately horrified that William Johnson made use of it and paid out bounties for Indian scalps, even those of non-combatants, and that Governor Shirley had to pass the same law in June last year in Massachusetts and that the governors of both Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania are preparing to do the same this year.

But they have to understand that war here is different. There’s no point in them preparing for battles that won’t be fought on their terms. William Johnson and I have been tryin’ to explain it to them because they _have_ to understand. Edward Braddock never understood and Edward Braddock is dead.

Leaning against a chimney stack on a nearby building, one floor up and with the sun at my back, I study the gang’s base of operations across the street. Just five armed guards and one gang leader. Two great brutes guarding the entrance, talking to each other and so narrowing their lines of sight. They’re not expectin’ trouble, they’re gettin’ cocky. Shouldn’t be too difficult but I have to get this right.

Moving along to the next chimney stack, I hear the familiar whispers of danger for the first time since the Homestead.

My second sight started coming back about two weeks ago, just like Master Kenway said it would. Just in flashes at first, pale and vague, like the cloud of colour a paintbrush leaves on the surface when you dip it in water, before you swirl it. Couldn’t control it either, it just happened, even when I wasn’t trying. Took almost a week for it to become more focussed and I had a headache for days.

Master Kenway helped me practice using it, taking me outside and testing it by asking me where people were - in sheds, beyond a wall or hidden by a dip in the landscape. He was so pleased the day I saw someone he couldn’t, too far away from him. Gave me a kiss out in front of all the gardeners and stablehands. He loves that mine’s better than his. 

It was the other reason he allowed me out on this mission today. He’s not worried I’ll fail. Colonel Monro, Sir Charles, Captain Cook, none of them are worried I’ll fail. I want to prove them right.

I start to load a fresh set of darts into my rifle but one of the dart needles catches on my glove so I pull it off - just the right one. Can’t take off my left glove while I’m on missions because of the ring. It’s my ‘work ring’, just a silver band with the Kenway crest etched onto it and an inscription inside it, not the mad diamond thing I have to wear when I’m not working, but it might still catch the light and give me away. Master Kenway won’t let me off the estate without a ring on, in case I’m stopped or caught. By now all the officers in the city know he has a mate.

But I don’t plan to get into trouble.

Aiming long and steady at the sentinel on the roof across the street, I fire a dart that sinks into the side of his neck, less than an inch below his ear. Perfect. Master Kenway’s hours of patient training have paid off.

As the sentinel raises his hand to his neck then crumples, I dart out of the shadow of the chimney stack and leap across, this time keepin’ my weight on the balls of my feet so I don’t hit the rain gutters and the weaker tiles along the edge. A quick kick to make sure the lookout doesn’t wake again to bother me then I move him behind the chimney stack and retrieve the dart lying on the ground. No point leavin’ evidence around.

Circling, I move along the roofs, pausing the shadows, using my sight to find and watch the leader. Around a corner and then another, nearer and near, until he appears. I drop down, blade ready. And it’s over. No kind of challenge and I have to remind myself not to be careless. This is my first mission and if there’s even a hiccup Master Kenway and Doctor Meadows won’t let me out again for weeks and I’m dyin’ to take the _Morrigan_ out for an airing.

Quickly and quietly, I hide the body in a dark corner then shimmy up onto the building where the flagpole is planted, cut down the flag, fold it and tuck it into my belt.

I’d planned to bring it back to Master Kenway but I think I have a better idea.

The colonel and his garrison are not far from here and I walk along the streets, among the people, to get there.

The way Gist and Weeks speak of the colonel - of his wisdom, hid patience, his kindness and his vision - you’d think they were talking about a dream or an ideal. I thought they were just exaggeratin’ - Monro recruited them both and inducted them into the Order himself. They owe him everything.

But then he came and spent two weeks at Kenway House with us, spent hours explainin’ things to me, like Master Kenway does, and I understood what Gist and Weeks see in him. I understood what the Order is and what it’s tryin’ to achieve.

Maybe before then I only _thought_ I understood. Before, I thought it was just Master Kenway and _his_ vision, but now I see it really is bigger than him, bigger than all of us.

“Master Cormac.”

The colonel immediately recognises me and holds out a hand to welcome me into the small courtyard where his men are training, firing at straw men.

Handing him the flag, I tell him the base is weakened and basically undefended.

“You are sure? Sir Charles doesn’t want any clashes in the city.”

“Sure. I took care of their leader. Their men are trained to defend and take orders but they won’t know to act independently. Trust me, colonel. I was able to take their flag unchallenged and without raising the alarm.”

The colonel nods, gives a few orders and soon a dozen of his men are escorting us back.

“My aides and I were just trying to think of ways to deal with this blight on the city. You are quite the boon, Master Cormac, you will do well in the Order.”

We find the remaining guards milling around, all discipline gone as they search for their boss, and they look more puzzled than upset as the colonel’s men round them up.

Within half an hour, they’re hauling up their flag and I throw the old one into a brazier, then follow the colonel as he searches the buildings for some ink and paper. He wants to send a request for men to garrison the building.

“Look here, Master Cormac.”

A chest, filled to bursting with loot and coins.

“Take it. Now come with me. I’m sure it can be used to accomplish some good.”

He leaves orders with his second then we leave.

I glance at the colonel a few times but I can’t read him. His eyes are smiling but his mouth is firm.

“Do you think I was wrong… to do what I did? Only I thought… I’d be the best person to do it, seein’ as I know how they think and how they’re organised.”

“No, Master Cormac. You were quite right to do what you did and you did it well. I wonder if you fully appreciate what you’ve done for the city… And I understand your desire to help. After all, a man needs a purpose.”

About a block away from the old gang base, we find a rundown building and the colonel leads me in, where an acquaintance of his is going through papers and tallying accounts. We give him the money we took so that he can complete the renovation of the building.

The man follows us out onto the street and his thanks follow us down it.

“But why a chapel? You’re not religious, are you?”

Master Kenway is not and he’s explained that the Order’s members believe in something different.

“I am not. But I also do not believe it is my place to tell others what they should believe or believe in. If people find comfort in religion then I will not deny them on principle. And people are still married and christened and buried, they should have places to do so. That too keeps order.”

The colonel signals a hire coach.

“Give my regards to Master Kenway. I expect I will see you again soon.”

“Aye, thank you, colonel.”

Still not comfortable with being helped into coaches but it’s starting to feel more natural.

“To Kenway House, up in East Village. Do not stop for anyone.”

A sharp rap and we’re off.

A couple of months ago, the protection and leather seats of a hire coach like this one would have been a luxury - I only ever took one twice, both times with Liam. Now it’s just a blind. I could have taken a horse or my own shay but we know the house is being watched so I have to disguise my comings and goings.

Pulling off my glove, I look at my ring again.

I like this ring. I like the other one too, of course, but this one feels smooth against my skin, like it’s been polished by wear even though it’s new, and the metal band is so flat it fits easily under even the snuggest gloves.

The lanterns of the _porte cochère_ are already lit when we arrive and Barrington tells me Master Kenway’s in his study so I go straight through, only stopping to kick off my muddy boots.

Master Kenway is at his desk and he looks up and smiles when I step in.

“How did it go, Shay?”

Must’ve thought about Master Kenway fifty times at least while I was out but suddenly I feel like I’m seeing him for the first time in weeks and even from fifteen feet away, I _miss_ him.

Master Kenway has just enough time to push back his chair before I’m straddling him, kissing him hard, and his hands slip under my coat, his palms pressed flat against my ribs.

“Shay?”

His voice is low and husky, almost a gasp, but I can hear the worry in it.

“I’m fine. Not a scratch on me.”

“You’re sure?”

“They never even saw me.”

Settling into his arms, I tell him all about my afternoon.

“Very well done, Shay. You were quite right to go to the colonel. And you’re sure you all right? No bruises or scratches.”

“None. Oh, a tiny hole in my glove but I did that handlin’ the darts.”

I show him and he examines the glove before pulling it off and examining my fingertip even more closely, then kissing it. 

“Haytham?”

“Mmm?”

Already a half-purr, like he knows what I’m going to ask him.

“Maybe you should check the rest of me yourself? Just in case?

“Perhaps I should. I could give you a bath and do it then.”

“Aye, might be best. And I thought… since I was well enough for the mission… probably well enough for a bit o’ the other thing too. If… if you want.”

“I do very much want. And I had the same thought and put it to John. He didn’t disagree.”

He’s looking up at me, smiling faintly and his eyes half-closed. I can feel his thumb stroking my thigh.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“On the contrary. I wish you would come and disturb me like this more often.”

A long kiss against my temple. 

“But you don’t like to be touched.”

“Don’t I? I suppose I don’t as a rule but surely by now you know you’re the exception.”

Aye, I suppose I do. He touched me, my skin, less than ten minutes after we met. At the time I didn’t think anything of it but now I know how much he avoids physical contact - doesn’t shake hands and doesn’t let himself be touched, not even on the shoulder or elbow.

“Is it really just me? What about your other… the other…?”

“Oh, necessarily. I touched my other partners and allowed them to touch me but I’ve never given anyone the latitude I allow you.” Another warm kiss, a little lower, behind my ear. “I suppose, in some way, it makes me your own private reserve.”

As soon as I tilt my head up to him he covers my mouth with his, pushes his tongue into it.

I am his private reserve too.

After dinner we go straight up to our room where the bath’s already been drawn but as I stand there, about to undress and watching Master Kenway pull off his coat and splash a hand in the water, I suddenly feel shy.

“Come on, Shay, the water will go cold.”

When I don’t move, he looks up at me and smiles.

“What is it, hawkling?”

Standing, he pulls me into his arms and gives me a long kiss, his lips gentle, his tongue coaxing, and soon I rest my head against his shoulder, melting.

“Would you mind if I joined you, hawkling?”

Aye, he still wants me. At least for now.

Pulling away, I start to unravel his cravat and unbutton his shirt, and he helps me undress too, slowly, taking his time and looking me over, like you’d unwrap a present you’d waited all year for.

Soon I’m in the bathtub, settled between Master Kenway’s legs as he washes my back, scrubbing then kissing it inch by inch.

“I think you might be right, hawkling. Not a scratch on you.”

And beneath the velvet endearment there’s the iron of his pride. Leaning back, I put my mouth to his throat - just want to drink it all up, everything he feels for me in this moment.

“Told you… It was nothing.”

“We’ll have to go on a mission together one of these days so you can show me what you can do, and perhaps teach me a thing or two, if you condescend to.”

When I take his hand, he drops the washcloth and lets me wind my fingers in his.

“Haytham?”

“Mmm?”

“You’re sure you don’t mind? I mean, me going out on missions and on the _Morrigan_ and things like that. I thought maybe you’d prefer me to stay here to…”

“Shay, I’m perfectly happy for you to work, just as I’m perfectly happy to do _the other thing_ while you’re here.”

“But wouldn’t you prefer…?”

“Shay, where is this coming from? I’m happy. Aren’t you?”

“I am. I just… I haven’t had a heat yet…”

“Give it time, Shay. Your second sight returned, didn’t it? Your heats will too. And before you ask _again_ , I don’t mind.”

“But-!”

“Trust me, hawkling, it only makes things last longer, not more intense. Not for me, in any case. We don’t need it.”

Shifting onto my side, I rest my head on his shoulder and rub his chest with the washcloth.

“Would you knot to me?”

“Not tonight, Shay. It takes practice. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But we’ll practice?”

“We’ll practice, but not tonight, hmm?”

“Promised?”

I can feel his smile against my hear and hear the laugh in his voice when he next speaks.

“Promised. Come on, I’m getting pruney.”

More kisses as we dry each other off. I’ve seen him naked plenty of times before but tonight it feels different.

He settles me on the bed but doesn’t join me, instead sitting on the edge, just a dark outline as he leans over to take the bottle of ointment he uses from the bedside table, and for a moment I can’t read him.

“Do you want…?”

“Don’t worry about me tonight, Shay. I took my pleasure of you last time. This time you should take yours.”

His mouth on mine is warm and the feel of his firm lips moving over mine, over my chin and down my throat and between my collarbones, makes my skin prickle right to the ends of my toes and that place at the back of my neck, where my hair stands on end, everywhere except under his warm palm on my chest, moving down, always lower until his hand closes around me and he starts to stroke me slowly and in a moment I’m wet.

“Haytham!”

“Always so impatient, Shay! Very well, you can have it your way tonight.”

His hand reaches lower, fondling and pulling, as he kisses his way down, only pausing to swirl his tongue in my bellybutton then suck on it, his mouth warm and wet, and I can’t help burying my hands in his hair to hold him or stop him, I don’t know anymore.

Master Kenway looks up at me and unties his hair, and for a moment I just run my fingers through it, watching the way it frames his face, changing its planes and shadows, how it brings out his cheekbones, the set of his chin, the cut of his lips. And he just watches me, smiling and smiling and smiling.

“Hold onto the bed frame, Shay.”

Then Master Kenway takes his ribbon and ties it in a bow around the base of my cock before running the hard tip of his tongue all along its underside, right to the tip, making me gasp and grip the cold brass bars of the bed frame. Before I have a chance to ask, his mouth is on me and his fingers are starting to press in, already slick with my wetness.

“Ah, Haytham!”

Barely two minutes and I’m already begging, his teeth leaving cool tracks along my hot flesh, his finger inside me, moving, feeling, then another, both of them searching then _crooking_ and I feel the sting of tears at the pleasure and the pain of my own nails digging into my palms, and then his hot mouth all around me and his fingers deeper, _reaching_ , but I still can’t come with the ribbon tied around me

He pulls away a moment and as he looks at me he runs the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip.

“Ready, Shay?”

His mouth on me again, hot and tight and drawing and in a moment the pressure of the ribbon is gone and I too disappear in a blaze.

When I open my eyes again, Master Kenway is next to me, propped up against the pillows and leans over to press a kiss onto my forehead, smiling.

“Welcome back.”

“Hello.”

My voice sounds dimmed. Guess I cried out more than I realised.

Another kiss, this time on my mouth, this time long and lingering.

“Do you want…?”

“I do. But you, Shay, how do you want it?”

 _Me? How do_ I _want it?_

“You said last time you wouldn’t mind being on top again. Does that still hold true?”

“Oh… Aye, I liked that.”

“Good. Come on, you’ll see we don’t need heats and knots to thoroughly exhaust you.”

When I straddle him, he pulls me onto his chest and we kiss again, my fingers in his soft hair, and I taste the sharp ointment on the air just before I feel his fingers slip between my cheeks and push inside me again, and I arch my back as they move in and out of me slowly.

“Shay, you can take another, hmm?”

I can only nod and he swallows up my gasp, returning it to me in murmured encouragements until he withdraws his fingers.

“You remember how? Slow and relaxed?”

I nod and straddle him, exhausted and starved for him. One hand on my hip, the other covering my hand as I guide him into me, I press myself down on him, one hand against his chest for balance, eyes closed as I try to relax. Maybe minutes, maybe hours later, my body burning up and drenched in sweat, he slips into me and all the air in my lungs puffs out in relief, and I press both hands onto his chest for support. Both hands on my hips now, he shows me how to move, just my lower body, slow, steady and deliberate, sinking one inch further then pulling back half an inch, and then again, working myself deeper onto him. Eyes closed, I can’t see him but I can hear him, gentle, coaxing, encouraging and still warm with pride, his voice catching sometimes in bitten-back breaths and snarls. Finally, _finally_ , I’m fully seated and I can take the weight and pressure off my trembling thighs, sinking just a little further onto him.

When I force my eyes open to look at him, he’s smiling and he reaches out caress my cheek before pulling the ribbon from my hair and twining his long fingers in it.

“All right, Shay? Is it uncomfortable?”

“No. I missed this. Being full of you.”

His eyes half-close again and I see the flash of teeth as I wiggle my hips a little to settle onto him more securely.

“Go on, hawkling. Take your pleasure of me.”

I start to move, trying, feeling, guessing what will be good for him, but then I see the way he watches me, the way his lips part whenever I gasp, how his hands on my hips tighten whenever I bite back a moan, and I know that he’s enjoying this. My hands still on his chest for balance, I roll my hips a little more and he bares his teeth a moment, his fingers pressing into my flesh, but I have to close my eyes at the fullness of him deep inside me, moving and unsettling me.

Tipping forward, I grab one of the bed frame bars with one hand and snap my hips harder and this time I hear Haytham snarl as his grip becomes bruising. I look into his eyes as I move on him, riding hard and chasing the throb and glow in my body, watching his control slip away with every jerk of my hips until he holds my hips tight and slams up into me, and my whole body flares up, at the next hard thrust I burn and at the next I feel him spill his heat inside me.

The next moment, like a burnt-down candle, I flicker out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Schenectady Massacre (1690): French and Indian attackers killed 38 men, 22 women and children and carried off 27 prisoners. Named for the settlement where the events took place. 
> 
> ** Scalp Acts: Massachusetts was offering £40 for the scalp of an Indian male over the age of 12, £20 for the scalp of an Indian female or a male younger than 12. Pennsylvania later offered 130 pieces of eight for the scalp of a male and 50 pieces of eight for that of a female.


	9. Haytham | Full of Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haytham and Shay continue to build their life together - professional and private.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly fluff in this chapter! <3  
> Thank you for all the adorable comments! So happy!

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, February 1756_

 

“I know it was what you always intended but I confess I’m still surprised at how much freedom you allow Shay. Don’t you make _any_ decisions for him?”

“Shay’s mother died birthing him, his father was often at sea then died when Shay was just a child. He had to start making choices very young. I don’t say they were always the right ones, but he learnt to make them nonetheless. To take that away from him now would be unthinkable. And besides, look where his choices have brought him.”

“But don’t you worry?”

I lean over to refill John’s glass and glance at the mantel clock. We’ll soon have to go up to make ourselves presentable for dinner. And yet Shay still isn’t back.

My hawkling has been splitting his time between his social obligations as my mate, often taking John with him when he goes out to pay his visits, the _Morrigan_ , and his work with George Monro. This afternoon he went out to study another one of those gang headquarters with a view to taking it over.

“I worry. I still worry whenever he’s out of my sight, even when I know he’s only run off to the kitchens to beg for scraps - I say ‘scraps’ but I really do think they now shamelessly keep back the best of everything for him. Shay brings me great joy but I think… having feared for his life so early in our relationship will taint my view of him for a long time yet. I have to force myself to allow him the freedom he needs.”

“I admire you for it. Taking a mate, founding a family, the way you have is a great responsibility.”

I hold my glass up and watch the play of flames in the fireplace through the pale wine as I consider John’s words.

“You remind me that I may soon have a child, Meadows. What do you know about Mohawk culture?”

“Nothing. Or near enough. William Johnson has told me some interesting things regarding their management of reproduction and he’s promised me more information.”

“I’ve told you that soon after I arrived here I had a two month dalliance with a Mohawk woman. Over the past few months since I’ve felt this growing certainty that she’s carrying my child, and I can’t help wondering…”

“What happened?”

“She simply left. I don’t know if it was something I did or if our relation had outlived its usefulness. She comes from a matriarchal society and her culture allows her to choose me as the father of her child the same way I would choose the reddest and shiniest apple at a fruit stand. When she removed both herself and, I assume, our unborn child, I did nothing to stop her. In her world I have no no way to stop her, no claim to either of them, no right. I still don’t. That, you see, was what I consented to. Being _used_ simply for the purposes of breeding.”

Meadows looks at me steadily, eyes slightly narrowed.

“You are full of surprises, Master Kenway.”

“Aren’t I just? What has Johnson told you about the Mohawk?”

“Oh, his wife says their tribe have a traditional way of handling omega pregnancies that has worked very well for them. And Johnson thinks omegas make up a higher percentage of the population, though it’s hard to tell just by looking, He’s offered to ask.”

“That is interesting. There may be a monograph in that, John. If you can take the time off, you could perhaps accompany him up to Fort Johnson or Fort William Henry to do some research yourself. I’m sure he and Monro would welcome your presence and you did say you wanted more field practice.”

“That might be an idea, yes.”

“Shall I speak to George-?”

We both look up as Shay appears in the doorway, in his stockings, coatless and grinning, with a large towel wrapped around his shoulders, then comes over to me, leaning over for a kiss when I tilt my head up.

“It’s done.”

“What do you mean, ‘done’?”

“They put more guards - guess because they lost that other base - but there was a guard change at sundown and with the visibility what it was because of the rain I was able to get in and take care of it without a fight.”

“Shay! You were only supposed to scout!”

“And you must be soaked.”

Shay laughs.

“Aye, well, I saw an opening - too good to pass up. And I did get a bit wet, doctor, Barrington made me take my coat and boots off, they’re drenched.”

“The rest of you too, I expect, Master Cormac. A bath is in order, then a thorough rub down with a towel.”

“Aye, Barrington’s already got one going.”

“John and I should get ready for dinner anyway. I suppose you’ll have yours in our room.”

“Aye. Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right. You were working. Come on, Shay, let’s get you into your bath.”

John bows and leaves and I take the towel and try to soak up as much of the water in Shay's hair as possible.

“Oh, I saw hundreds of boots and rifles in the mudroom, are we holding them for someone?”

“Not quite as many as all that, Shay. Because of the weather, I offered Colonel Monro the use of our Great Hall to drill his troops in. We’ll stop by to tell him about the base you captured.”

Shay’s grin widens when we reach the Great Hall, which runs the length of the building and is yet unfinished, and sees files of the Colonel’s redcoats in their stockings and holding split logs in lieu of rifles as they march and pirouette neatly for their manoeuvres, oddly small and silent under the tall vaulted ceiling, as yet not plastered.

As soon as he sees us, George Monro comes over and bows to Shay and they exchange a few pleasantries before Shay tells us of his escapade.

I feel a certain amount of delayed anxiety at the thought of Shay taking on these gangs now that they’re on alert. But he’s in high spirits, elated at his success, and from his recounting of it I have no sense of his having taken unwarranted risks. His Sight must have given him a distinct edge after dusk on a rainy day, I too have taken advantage of mine in just such circumstances.

“And the place is garrisoned?”

“Aye. Showed that letter you gave me to the first patrol I saw, they went for reinforcements and took it over. Said they’d send word to you.”

Colonel George Monro is not the most expressive man but there is true warmth in his voice and in his expression as he regards Shay.

“Very well done, Master Cormac.”

Once Shay and I finally make it upstairs we find the bath drawn and Barrington hovering about the bedroom discreetly, winding up the bracket clock and twitching the drapes into place. I have just enough time to help Shay undress, settle him into his bath and have my hair lightly powered before I have to return downstairs to greet my dinner guests, leaving Shay in Barrington’s capable hands and the only other ones I allow to touch Shay.

All through dinner with John, Monro, and a few others, I find that part of my mind has lingered upstairs in the steamy, pine-scented bathroom with the mate I’m so eager to get back to.

My thoughts are still on him at the end of the evening, once most of my guests have gone and John, Monro and I sit in one of the drawing rooms nibbling on hard biscuits dipped in sherry. A suddenly prickling of the skin on the back of my neck, along my hairline, and when I look up I see Shay's bright eyes by the doorjamb as he peers into the room.

“Come in, Shay.”

Shay hasn’t fully dressed again after his bath but he looks decent enough for drinks _en petit comité_ and I can see Barrington’s discerning eye in the choice of a crisp lawn shirt with broad periwinkle ribbons on the sleeves, a vest of undyed cashmere, simple nankeen breeches and blue worsted stockings. He’s still glowing and fresh-faced from his bath and he comes to sit by me in a waft of sharp pine.

After half an hour more of desultory conversation, the colonel and the doctor make a strategic exit and as soon as we’re alone, Shay leans over for a kiss, spilling into my lap and clearly hungry for more. I unbutton his vest and draw him closer but when I slip my hand under under his shirt, I find something hard and cold.

“What’s this?”

Pulling away and fumbling a little with the long shirt, I finally unbutton enough of it to reveal the blue ribbon and the key slung on it.

“I thought… we could try something new.”

Is this really what _he_ wants or is he merely trying to anticipate _my_ wants as he so often does?

“Shay, you don’t have to-.”

“I _want_ to.”

He settles close against me and I feel a few nibbling kisses against my neck.

“I liked it. When we did it before.”

Yes, he did seem to though I’m still disconcerted by how often Shay refers to that first night, the things we did and promises made, quite naturally, as if he’d forgotten the circumstances of it.

Half an hour later we’re settled by the bedroom fireplace, on the bearskin rug Shay had wanted that night. I’m in a partial state of undress but Shay is already down to nothing but his shirt, almost completely unbuttoned, settled between my legs and kept warm by the fire and my arms, wrapped loosely about him as he continues to unpack the toy box, the rug strewn with objects, some still in their pouches, the ones he’s most interested in left unwrapped.

Many I hadn’t seen in years and had quite forgotten about, including the large lacquerware box Shay has left for last. He releases all the latches, lifts the lid then stares, nonplussed.

“A baby kraken!”

“A squid, Shay.”

Careful and marvelling, bright eyes wide, he pulls out each of the eleven pieces.

Black as jet, the thing is beautiful in its own right with its eight arms and pair of slender spear-headed tentacles, each in different positions, some undulating, some curling, each settling into sockets on the underside of the large polished head with its large, lustrous pearl eyes.

A gift from the Grand Master of Japan, one of the Shogun’s advisors, entrusted to me via the senior Templar in Tamao* for Reginald, who decided he didn’t want it and bade me keep it. Carved out of black coral or some kind of petrified driftwood** - I’ve forgotten which, perhaps a bit of both - it cost half a dozen craftsmen a year of their lives to make.

Still wide-eyed, Shay handles one of the arms, thick and blunt-ended then a long curve tapering to a delicate tendril curling back on itself, smooth along the top while the underside, rippling with smooth dimpled suckers, emphasises its gentle swirl.

“These are beautiful.”

“Mmm.”

He sighs and turns for a kiss as I stroke the inside of his thigh.

“You’re really never used these?”

“Never. Certainly not those.”

Picking up the head, Shay holds it up and looks into his pearlescent eyes.

“Definitely a kraken.”

“A squid, Shay.”

Though Shay doesn’t realise it, the flared head with its gently ruffled fins can also be used. I won’t tell him just yet. He tends to push himself and I don’t want to give him any ideas.

“Our captain of the foretop - Tom - well, his cousin’s husband is first mate on a whaler out of Nantucket and they were nearly sunk off the coast of Peru once by a kraken - a hole the size of a salted pork barrel top, a third of it under the water line, they had to make straight for land heeled over so far they were trailing their rails through the breakers. We met them in Martha’s Vineyard about two years ago and he told us all about it, described it and even drew it and it was _just_ like this! Only a lot bigger.”

“Oh, I’m sure it was. My father told me stories of diving down to a shipwreck somewhere between Jamaica and Nassau and seeing a kraken fight a whale and the thing _he_ described was just like that only bigger too. I think I once asked him for a drawing of it.”

“Aye, you left it in the pirate book.”

“Did I?

“Aye, and you wrote ‘kraken’ under it.”

“All the same, it’s a squid.”

Shay gives me a long look from beneath dark lashes then lowers his gaze, turning away.

“Shame…”

His meaning is limpid and yet so clearly all in play. He knows perfectly well aware I want nothing more than to indulge him, but he loves to hear it.

“Well, perhaps it _is_ a kraken. After all, who am I to contradict two pirates captains and the husband of the cousin of your captain of the foretop?”

He turns to me, bright and happy, and we share a long, unhurried kiss.

“Have you chosen which one you want to try?”

“Can’t we try all eight?”

I can’t quite hold back a laugh.

“You have an exaggerated sense of your own stamina, hawkling. Let’s start with one and take it from there, hmm?”

He nods solemnly before starting to tidy up the rug, wrapping up the unnecessary toys with something near reverence before carefully packing them away, and I spend my time nuzzling his hair and caressing his skin as he leans back against me comfortably, as though settling down to a long task, and he very seriously considers each curling appendage in turn.

Chasing the scent of him beneath the pine, I fall into a reverie. I grew up nurtured by Reginald’s ambitions for me and even by his impossible standards, I have overachieved. Grand Master not just of one country but of fully thirteen colonies at twenty-nine, made a member of the Templars’ Inner Sanctum at just thirty-one - oh, I have done as well as he could ever have hoped.

And I don’t say I would give it up, even now that I know the truth of him. Losing Reginald and what he meant to me was like losing a piece of myself but being a Templar is such a large part of what makes me _me_ that I’m not sure my sense of self would survive its removal. But just now, with my Shay in my arms, none of that matters. The sting of betrayal and the suffocating weight of doubt, they are both eased by the smell and feel of him, they are drowned out by the glittering depths of his dark eyes, soothed by the unadulterated joy that he exudes from every pore when he’s with me.

Yet Shay is not a part of me.

Over dinner, the same man who handed Reginald’s gift over to me showed me a valuable tea bowl of his, glazed in inky black over blue, that had broken clean in two when he dropped it one day, that he’d sent to Japan for repairs and that had just now returned to him on the same ship that carried Shay’s kraken. The long jagged crack had been cemented with gold***, bright and gleaming against the the dark glaze. He explained that it symbolised the acceptance of the imperfect and was a reminder that broken things can be repaired.

Of course, his had been an oblique reference to the increasingly tense trade relations between our empires. But now, feeling the beat of Shay’s heart against my palm… That is what Shay is to me. He holds all the pieces of me together, fills in the cracks - a constant reminder to strive for better.

“This one.”

He’s chosen an arm with a long curve that bends back on itself in an elegant loop. Nuzzling his ear, I take it from him, entirely prepared to spend all night working for his pleasure.

“Very well, hawkling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defence, Ubisoft made me do it.  
> There are two krakens, at least, in the franchise. One in Black Flag as mentioned, the other in AC Brotherhood. 
> 
> * Tamao: city on Hong Kong.  
> ** umimatsu and umoregi respectively. In fact, umoregi may or may not be jet…  
> *** kintsugi


	10. John | Chasing Eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, Haytham and the others go to Haytham’s Virginia plantation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I've been hideously busy! Bit of a palate cleanser chapter before things ramp up <3  
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos! Hope you all like the chapter :)

****

**JOHN**

_Pointe-de-l’Aigle Plantation, Virginia, February 1756_

 

“How do you like it?”

Startled by Kenway’s quiet words, I take an involuntary step backwards and at the sharp snap of a few twigs beneath my heel, the pair of magnificent ducks I was observing - absurdly beautiful with their green iridescent-heads, spotted throats and short black and white stripes along their sides - takes wing halfheartedly, skimming over a few yards of water before landing again in the shadow of a handful of slender pale tree trunks, sending interwoven ripples out over its surface.

“Spectacular. I’ve never seen a place so beautiful or so… _wild_. It’s like find finding Eden.”

From his vantage point on a small bank, Haytham surveys this little corner of his domaine, his expression softening as his mate saunters down to join us and comes to stand by him.

After days of work up near the plantation house, we took the _Morrigan_ out for the day, following the bay southwards towards the great Potomac river, stopping near a creek to explore this yet untouched part of Kenway’s estate.

Wandering off but staying within earshot of our local guides, I chanced upon a - I hesitate to call this place of spectacular beauty and _greenery_ a marsh, it’s more like a gently flooded meadow, with seemingly just enough water to hide the roots of the grass shoots and delicate teardrop-shaped leaves on their short stalks, leaving them floating on a surface so still and clear it does nothing at all but mirror the pale powder blue, cloud-veiled sky above.

We stand there, staring, in the rising peaty air, listening to the sound of a distance woodpecker until one of the dozen jet-black turtles lined up along a fallen trunk stretches, shuffles and plops into the water.

“Have you ever seen the like, Kenway?”

“Never. Do you like it, Shay?”

Cormac nods but with that slightly dazed expression he’s worn so often since we arrived here at Eagle’s Point, as Kenway’s plantation is most commonly known.

By ship, Eagle’s Point is an easy distance from New York, a scenic cruise along the East Coast down to the Chesapeake Bay and onwards up the Potomac.

When Haytham first suggested a short trip to his Virginia estate, I had thought he’d intended it as a treat for his young mate and no doubt it was in part - Shay’s boundless joy at the prospect of taking his precious ship for an outing was a delight to witness. Shay knows these parts well enough, often running errands in the area for his former partners since the waters in the Bay are too shallow for most ships, and has delighted in playing guide to Haytham and I. Haytham himself had only been to the plantation twice before and one of those times he came overland.

The Virginia coastline was a marvel, long stretches of bone-white sand that build into fanned dunes just beneath and above the waterline, others harsher, the shallows studded with rock formations smoothed over by centuries of surf washing over them. And the amount of greenery - trees, grasses, mosses, all of it bright and _exuberant_ \- as though even at a distance the land itself wanted to boast of its richness and lay it out its generosity for all to see. And this when in New York the first timid buds have barely dabbed any colour onto the winter-bare trees.

But entering the Bay was like entering a fantasy world of inlets and islands and floating meadows of broad-leafed bulbs, grazed upon by glossy turtles instead of hares and with dolphins running across them instead of deer.

And Shay, as smug and proud at our astonishment as though he’d owned it all. Until we rounded a large, lush peninsula into a tributary, crossed a sweeping bay, and there, on a headland at the very end of the crescent, we came up to the house itself, elegant, proud, pure white and black-shuttered, set like a jewel between the sparkling waterline and the rich, dark woodland behind it. Shay glancing at his master, as if to seek confirmation that they were in the right place.

“Shay! Over here!”

That’s Christopher Gist just out of sight behind a knoll and Shay nods to us before moving off to join him. They’ve been putting into practice the surveying and mapping techniques James Cook taught them - something about shoreline triangulation - and have planted flags all down the coastline as the basis for both their land and sea maps.

Turning back and trailing behind him, Kenway and I fall into step with each other.

The house is beautiful but still a little bare, still far from the opulence of Kenway’s New York house, and though certainly Kenway is glad to show the place off to us, it quickly became clear why he brought so many of us with him. The plantation still needs a lot of work. Barrington has been bustling day and night to make the house habitable and keep the kitchens stocked and going and outside the house there is even more work to be done. The land is generous, yes, one need only look at its vegetation and the rich, dark soil it draws from to realise this. And yet, all this exuberance needs direction to be made to yield in a way that will provide for those who live on it and only a few acres of land have been cleared and planted.

Yes, Kenway must be weighed down with worries but just at the moment, as his gaze follows Shay, he’s smiling faintly.

“I think I better understand why you chose Shay.”

“Oh?”

“It hadn’t occurred to me that you might really value how resourceful and useful he is.”

“Ah, well, I suppose you’ve seen more of my frivolous side. The truth is I have an unquenchable need for resourceful and useful people. There’s enough work to be done here to keep Gist, Weeks, Shay and a few others busy for several years but I cannot spare any of them, our needs up north are more pressing. Still, Shay needed something to do, his confidence was knocked before he came to me and these last few days - the _Morrigan_ , the works here at the plantation, trying his hand at what Cook has taught him - have already helped him.”

He pauses, glances down at the muddy ground, then crouches and, to my astonishment, takes some of the dark, dense, reddish clay between his fingers, letting it smear and crumble.

“War ought to have been formalised months ago but I suppose the delay isn’t all bad. This area was settled less than thirty yeas ago, there’s still plenty to be done. I’m told the tobacco plants threaten to deplete the soil, that we should switch crops. I’d intended to do so in any case - corn and wheat will go much further towards keeping the families that work the estate fed and we may yet have need of it back in New York in a few months’ time. But tobacco is a commodity good, I can trade my tobacco notes throughout Virginia _and_ in New York. Until we have a common currency between the colonies or a real system of banks on which drafts can be drawn, commodity notes are the closest thing we have to a common currency. And money is the lifeblood of trade and investment.

He pauses, straightening, and glances around himself, but unseeing, as though he weren’t surrounded by trees and water but by something else, something bigger. Then a sigh and a nod.

“At least… tobacco sells. The plantation doesn’t turn a profit yet but it can just about keep the people that work it whereas corn and wheat cannot be made into meal and flour until the mill is completed - which it isn’t yet, though works on it started over six months ago. Even if we’re not able to make our own food, we might at least be able to buy it.”

Ah, the grist mill, Haytham’s most ambitious project and his absolute priority during this trip - it’s unfinished state has caused him great frustration.

“The foundations have been laid, Kenway, the rest will follow more quickly, especially now that Shay and the others have sped up the work.”

Shay, Gist and Weeks have done an inordinate amount of work on the mill in the time we’ve been here. Work on it had been coming along too slowly. The original location had proved inadequate and so it had had to be moved and work on it had been advancing slowly - too few hands, too few materials, inclement winter weather.

But after during a short cruise further up the river, Gist, the born and bred frontiersman, was able, at a glance, to spot the location of a possible rock formation and sure enough we’ve been quarrying rocks from it since. Shay put the entirety of the _Morrigan_ ’s crew to work - the blacksmith, the carpenter, the sailmaker and their mates put to specialised tasks, others set to helping the plantation’s people quarry the stone, some tasked with building the sturdy rafts that are now being used to float the timber and stone downriver to the building site. And meanwhile, Weeks has shown himself to have the makings of a wonderful estate manager.

At the top of the hillock, we both pause and look towards the wide bay, and the sands of what had still been an island half an hour ago now glisten gold and wet as the tide comes in, soon to become a sunken island. Shay and Gist have been using it as a fixed surveying point.

“Well, that’s true at least. And Jack thinks that it would take just an additional two or three days to finish teaching the plantation’s people the skills necessary to continue the work in the way it’s being carried out - repairing the rafts, handling them both with the current and against and so on…. And fortunately the millstones were ordered and delivered months ago. The best kind can only be had in France and trade between us is already restricted. And we must start building storage barns for the grain when it does start to come in, but even though the soil, this clay, is rich and nutritious, large tracts of it are unstable - swelling when wet and shrinking when dry - and cannot be safely built upon. Gist has been going over the terrain and what maps we have with some of the locals, trying to find safe sites for a few buildings.”

As we watch, Shay, Gist and Weeks double over in laughter, Gist slapping his knee. Kenway smiles.

“Look at them. I promised them a holiday and yet here I am, shamelessly exploiting them all.”

“They’re happy to do it, we all are. This is worthwhile work.”

We start to make our way down the hill and when they catch sight of us, Shay and the others wave.

It is worthwhile work. Hard work but good work. Eagle’s Point is vast but still new and can support no more than the twenty families settled here until more land is cleared and more homes constructed. Still, plenty of work to keep me busy and once the place is worked up into the community Kenway envisions, it will require its own physician.

“Yes, it is. And I thank you for your part in this too, I could use another of you to leave behind here as well. It is so important that this plantation prosper, John, as an example of a profitable venture run entirely without the need for slave labour. Until someone can show that it _is_ possible, we cannot hope to convince these large southern landowners to give up slavery and their profits with it. But that all of that will have to be a fight for a later time - life this close to the frontier is treacherous even in times of peace and if I can just keep the people here fed and healthy throughout this war then… well, I must consider that an achievement.”

Glancing up, he frowns slightly as the lowering light hits his eyes and insensibly the lines across his forehead reappear.

“Land, food, shelter… People will turn on each other and kill to protect these. Ziio - the Mohawk woman I was with when I arrived - told me that in her clan they still talk about the last time we set up a blockade of the St Laurence. New France does not produce enough to feed herself, and Ziio’s village elders still remember the January of ’93 when the French and their Abenaki allies, driven by anger and frustration and despite the cold and the danger, carried out a raid and destroyed three Mohawk towns, taking hundreds of captives and leaving twice as many dead. They nearly died in the doing of it, as they must known they might, but it didn’t stop them. The horror at Fort Henry happens every day on a smaller scale all over this land… We rely on the natives here, on their goodwill and their help, but these relations and alliances are fragile, they will not take much strain.”

Kenway’s lines fade as we reach the others and they show us the maps they’re working on. The mouth of this creek is the lowest point in the curve of the bay and from here we can see its entirety, Cormac and Gist proudly showing up their rendering of the shoreline. Both their maps are built upon this common shoreline, Gist surveying the land inwards while Shay and Jones will chart the bay then out towards the river and some of the Bay.

“See? We’ve got the house here, this creek here, that tree with the bald eagle’s nest on it there. And we’ll do the same on the other shore, it isn’t far, and Jones and me are goin’ to-.” 

“Jones and I, Shay.”

“Jones and I aren join’ to sound the bay too. Most of it is really shallow but luckily it’s all mud at the bottom to it, not rock or anythin’.”

“Deep enough for the _Morrigan_ though.”

“In places, aye. But I wouldn’t want to bring a ship with any more draught up this far, we’d have to leave them out by the promontory at the end of the bay by the mouth of the river then row up.”

“That should help keep the plantation safe, shouldn’t it?”

“Aye, well, if it’s the French then you’ll see ‘em coming, and unless they load canons onto skiffs… No, don’t think you’ll have to worry too much about the French, sir. Canoes, on the other hand… Coming down the Occoquan… The way the river’s laid out you wouldn’t see ‘em ’til they drew up at the big house and pulled up their canoes on shore ten feet from the front door. Or landed in the creek behind it and approach from the back. And it’s a slow-movin’ river, easy to paddle back up.”

Yes, the estate manager did mention it is a slow moving river and Kenway’s concerned at being able to properly power the grist mill. And glancing around this beautiful, tranquil place, lit by long golden rays of light reflected in bay’s still expanse of water and every muddle in the mud, I suddenly see it as a deathtrap, exposed to the water almost on all sides, planted so thick with trees that most of it is impenetrable to the eye from shore. Hidden enemies and danger everywhere. And yet Kenway says the area is largely safe.

“I don’t expect you’ll be able to map all of it from this shore, Gist. Would it help if we dropped anchor for a time when we round the headland on our way up to Mount Vernon?”

“It certainly would, sir. Captain Cook gave us some ideas for a running survey so we should be able to produce something reputable.”

“Very well, if you can estimate how long you’ll need, we’ll factor it into our travel plans. For now, let’s head back, we’ll all need a good wash before dinner.”

Kenway takes his mate’s arm and tucks it under his and Shay half twists around.

“We’ll need to find some landmarks further inland, Gist. We’ll run up the _Morrigan_ ’s main mast, we’ll have a great view from there - maybe another eagle’s nest.”

“I’ll race you to the top, Shay!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are probably enough clues in the chapter that one could find the location of Haytham's plantation on the first map... ;) 
> 
> On the subject of maps, Ubisoft could probably reconcile Assassins and Templars with their maps of the Frontier, the River Valley and the North Atlantic (and even Black Flag, tbh). Comparing those maps to real ones really brings it home that Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted. And if you're using them to navigate then... May the Father of Understanding Guide You, my friends...


	11. Shay | Troubled Waters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shay continues to work hard at building a new life but memories of the old don’t quite leave him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNINGS FOR PAST NON-CON* 
> 
> Sorry for the delay and to anyone whose comments I haven't answered! I'm not ignoring you, just busy! @_@  
> Hope you enjoy! <3 
> 
> Also, I've never been to Virginia, some descriptions may be off.

**SHAY**

_Pointe-de-l’Aigle Plantation, Virginia, February 1756_

 

“Shay! Catch!”

Gist throws a coil of rope at me and after it passes out of torchlight I can’t make out its path and the weight of it as it lands against my chest nearly knocks me off the small pier we’ve just finished building, into the water.

“Gist, I should have you keelhauled for this!”

Gist slaps his knee, bent over laughing.

“Good thing the _Morrigan_ ’s bottom is so clean!”

Standing behind him with some of the _Morrigans_ and joining in the laughter are the plantation people who’ve been helpin’ us with the pier. They’ve been helping us put the finishing touches on this pier we’ve been puttin’ up near the big house, staying out long after dark in the still cold night and taking their dinner of bread and cheese with us, standing around a fire, trading stories.

“The children see the tides coming it and go out, they think it’s the sea they’ve heard about, they go looking for shells on the beach. One of the boys was waist-deep by the time we got to him, every time he moved he was getting sucked further in. Then he was so terrified he stopped moving and we got a rope around him and eventually dragged him out.”

The mudflats. Our small bay is shallow and at low tide part of it lies uncovered, like an island, surrounded by glistening shallows that look like they’re covered in water just a couple of fingers deep. The birds tread on it as if it were solid ground but it’s not. It’s not sand and it’s not soil, it’s mud and silt suspended in water, kept in the bay by the flow of the Occoquan on one side and the tidal flow of the Potomac on the other. The tide out here doesn’t move much, the flats never really dry, the island is just the top inch of mud exposed, stepping on it is very nearly as bad as stepping on water, worse, even - it’s a lot harder to get unstuck from mud than from water.

“Aye, you can’t walk on the mudflats, it’s dangerous, but you could take a canoe or a rowboat out to fish, no danger of runnin’ yourselves aground unless you hang about over the island while the tide’s goin’ out. And we could lay out planks on buoys to make the banks safer if you want to fish from the shore - you can throw out crab lines, crabs come in on the tide and are dead easy to catch, some of the lads can show you how tomorrow. Plenty of fish and crabs out there, the eagles and the ospreys can spare a few.”

The men laugh. Just this afternoon, while we were working, we saw plenty of birds swooping in and huge blue and grey herons perambulating around the bay and the shores, leaving claw marks in the soil bigger than the span of a grown man’s hand, helping themselves to whatever they found in the mud or caught in small tide pools, serpentine and stalking and taller than the plantation children who came to watch us, squatting in a line on the grass, wide eyed and solemn.

Most of the people here are farmers and plantation hands, good hard-working people who understand the land and crops, but they don’t understand water unless its in creeks and ponds, wells and dams. They’re afraid of open water, afraid even of our little bay, miles away from the sea, where the water still rises and sinks twice a day, completely changing the look of it.

We could use more fishermen, frontiersmen and homesteaders here. Gist knows Virginia well but even he’s been surprised by some of the things we’ve found here. I love it here - aye, we’ve had to work hard, there’s still lots to do before we the place is build up into anything like the other plantations round these parts, ‘specially the larger ones further north. But I like that and I haven’t felt this free and spent so much time outdoors since I landed at Kenway House. I’ve liked being able to show Master Kenway, here and on the _Morrigan_ , that I’m useful.

And the place is beautiful. The bay with the whole plantation on its peninsula curved around it like a jewel. Still an easy distance from the Chesapeake Bay and a perfect safe harbour for the _Morrigan_. I’d never imagined there was anything like it out here.

We get cool, sweet water from the Occoquan and the warm, still, barely troubled shallow waters of the bay attract all kinds of fish and animals, and there’s even a large pool of brackish water behind the house that we’re going to try to stock with fish before we leave. And just beyond the point on the other side of the bay are the deeper, saltier waters of the Potomac - we saw dolphins and bull sharks in it on our way up here.

After tidying up the tools and saying our goodnights, we all head back home.

Master Kenway is at the campaign desk we brought over from Kenway House, looking over the estate ledgers, and glances up when I come in.

“There you are, Shay. Come, I’ve almost finished.”

Putting my arm around him to steady myself as he pulls me onto his lap, I wind the tips of his hair through my fingers.

“How does it look?”

“It’s not too bad, considering. I haven’t been able to spend as much time here as I’d intended and we’ll have to invest a little more. I sent my bank here a draught on my London bank a few weeks ago so there will be money coming in but in future I’ll hold onto any tobacco notes I get and next time you have business in these parts you could come and hand them off to the intendant here - that will be quicker than getting money in from London.”

The arm around me tightens, he presses a quick kiss against my neck and after dropping the quill onto its tray, his hand comes to rest on my thigh, stroking it gently.

“But, hopefully, in a couple of years or so, we’ll start to see profits. What do you think of the place, Shay?”

“It’s beautiful. I can’t… I can’t believe it’s all yours.”

“ _Ours_ , Shay. And I’d be glad to hear any ideas you have concerning it’s development.”

“Well, I did think we could use more boats here. We’ve made rafts for carrying the timber and stone but a skiff like the _Morrigan_ ’s would be handy for getting around the property, even just crossing the bay. Plenty of fish in the bay so I’ve asked some of the lads to teach anyone who wants to learn how to fish on a line. It’ll have to be from the pier but with a couple of rowboats they’d be able to get further out, might be able to catch more. And once the crops and mill get going, we’ll need some larger, flat-bottomed boats to carry it all to trade.”

“You’re right. We’ll have to look into acquiring some - I suppose they’re hard to build?”

“We could do it but not in the time we have left. I thought, if Sir Charles really does send me privateering…”

“Yes, of course, the Navy has an option on anything you bring in, but anything they pass on is ours to sell or keep. And we could use a small trade fleet. I hope you’re training up some of your seconds, we’ll need captains.”

“Aye, and I know where to recruit some too.”

“Mmm. And now, I think it’s time we gave you a wash.”

Soon I’m settled on a stool by the fire, a washbasin at my feet, scrubbing myself clean with a washcloth as Master Kenway changes for bed.

There’s a tub here but we haven’t used it since we arrived. This house doesn’t have the same sort of piping and hot water as the Kenway House does, and it doesn’t have permanent staff, and there’s so much to do, Master Kenway didn’t want anyone to waste time and energy on that sort of luxury, so it’s just washbasins for now.

Finally he comes over, takes the washcloth and scrubs my back before dropping the washcloth into the basin and taking one of my hands.

“When we get back home, I’m going to soak you in the tub until your hands and feet become webbed.”

And he spreads my fingers and pushes his tongue between them.

“After fattening me up like a prize hog, you’re goin’ to cook me like one too?”

He laughs and rubs me down with a towel quickly before wrapping it around me so that I can’t move, then looks at me, smiling lazily.

“And devour you up.”

He means that too, I can see it in his eyes, that he’s hungry for me. He hasn’t had me since we left New York. A captain’s always on duty and besides, there isn’t much privacy on a brig like the _Morrigan_ and I didn’t want the men feeling awkward. And since we got here, there’s been so much work for me and worry for Master Kenway, it never seemed the right time.

Soon we’re in bed and I’m caught up in his arms while his lips slowly move from my temple to my ear.

“Do you want…?”

“No, hawkling, we’re both exhausted. But when we get back we’ll make up for lost time, I promise. You poor thing, whatever did you do to deserve such an insatiable master, hmm?”

_Oh, I could’ve done worse._

As I huddle closer to him, Master Kenway goes very still and the muscles in his arms tighten.

Oh. Must’ve said that out loud.

“Who hurt you, Shay?”

There it is. Hadn’t heard it since that time in the carriage, the first night we met, months ago now, but the cold steel in his voice still feels like the slash of a sharp knife.

His hands creep into my hair and when he tilts my head up to him I see the firelight reflected in his eyes.

“Look at me, hawkling. You’re safe. Aside from that scoundrel, O’Brien, who hurt you?”

Don’t want to tell him. Didn’t mean to tell him, ever. He deserves better than someone like me, so damaged and used. But I know him and he won’t let it go now.

“Kesegowaase.”

Master Kenway’s pale eyes narrow as he gives me a long, long look. 

“I think you’d better tell me, Shay.”

So I tell him. Some of it.

“We were out by the frontier, Kesegowaase was teaching me to track animals.”

I’ve spent years trying to forget about it but it all comes back in a flood of colour and smells. Out in the frontier, late in the fall, on a hunting trip. We’d been out all day and were on our bellies in one of those hunting blinds we’ve put up all over the homestead and out into the frontier, the sun had gone down so it was getting cooler and darker - the damp in the ground carried up the smell of dying and fading leaves and the stink of deer fat we’re covered with, Kesegowaase especially, finally fading a bit. We’d already decided we’d head back in about half an hour when a bear appeared from behind a thicket, upwind but close enough that it would’ve seen us if we’d moved out of the blind.

My head on his shoulder, Master Kenway watches me, his arm around me, his other hand on my cheek as he strokes just behind my ear with his thumb. He’s my master and a Grand Master of the Order - he shouldn’t be so easy to talk to.

“Kesegowaase told me to keep still and quiet then shifted on top of me, to cover up my scent with the reek of deer still on him. That bear rustled around for ages - could just about hear it but I couldn’t see it from my angle and Kesegowaase is big and heavy, couldn’t’ve moved even if I’d tried, and after two hours of being cold, I finally felt warm again and.. I guess I fell asleep. Didn’t really feel like we were in danger - we weren’t really, as long as we didn’t move and the wind didn’t change we’d be safe. And Kesegowaase is a Maliseet brave, he grew up in the frontier and he could’ve killed that bear single-handed if he’d needed to. Seen him do it.”

I also tell him of waking to the feeling of Kesegowaase’s mouth and hands on me, pinned down under his huge body, trapped, one of his hands pinning both of mine to the ground above my head while with the other he pulled down my breeches.

I can tell him that but I can’t properly explain what happened next - the blind panic of it like a dense foguntil it was ripped to shreds by pain when Kesegowaase forced me, even though I fought and struggled to stop him and get away. I couldn’t say how long he took me, I only being crushed and the taste of mud and dead leaves and his hard, ragged breath in my ear telling me it would be all right and not to struggle.

But when he started to push his knot into me I panicked and as feel the sharp, cold prickle of goose flesh run along my skin I huddle against Master Kenway’s warmth, burying my face against him, breathing in deep the scent of him. His smell is clearer here, it’s not covered by the scent of pine bathwater. I can feel his breath against my ear just as he presses a kiss onto it. He deserves better than a broken, _used_ jailbird like me. I’ve never felt luckier.

I never even saw Liam, never heard him approach, only heard him swear at us before the searing, tearing pain. He’d pulled Kesegowaase off me and punched him, then he grabbed one of my arms and jerked me up, his face dark with more anger than I’d ever seen on him, though he went pale when he saw my face.

I was bleeding everywhere and to sore to move or even stand so Liam slung me over his shoulder and carried me back to the homestead, furiously silent and ignoring Kesegowaase who followed a few yards behind.

They called a doctor for me - first time I’d ever seen one - but he didn’t know much about omegas or the kind of injury I had, not like Doctor Meadows, and he couldn’t help me much. I bled for three days, getting weaker and weaker, with only the doctor and Hope to look after me and for a while we all thought I was going to die. And all those three days we could hear Liam downstairs, roaring and raging at Kesegowaase, who sometimes answered quietly, like a low hum, and sometimes Achilles’ voice, thin and reedy through the floorboards, trying to reason with him.

I was always cold then, from the blood loss and the fever and the chill I caught that day, but

“What Kesegowaase did was an insult to Liam, see? And a betrayal. And disrespect. Never heard Liam shout like that before - he hardly ever raises his voice - but on and on it went for days until he was starting to go hoarse and still on until one day Kesegowasase shouted back.”

Kesegowaase _never_ raises his voice but his voice that day shook the entire house and even Hope went white.

_“Do you still want him?”_

Dead silence after that, like all the air’d gone out of the world, but Kesegowaase wasn’t done yet. Said he’d seen how Liam took me, like he was fucking a ugly wife he’d been married to for ten years, and that if Liam didn’t want me anymore, he’d take me. So, did he still want me?

Silence and silence and then the back door slammed so hard the glass plates in the window frames rattled like those in the _Morrigan_ under cannon fire.

Silence and silence for a couple more days. I’d stopped bleeding, I was getting stronger, but now I didn’t know _who_ I was getting stronger for. I couldn’t sleep for worrying and when I did I’d wake up cold and drenched with sweat, terrified Liam wouldn’t want me anymore. I hadn’t seen him since he brought me back, I had no idea how he felt or what he was thinking - whether he still loved me at all.

All I knew was that if Liam didn’t want me they’d let Kesegowaase have me and I didn’t want that and hour by hour I’d remember all the times I’d tried Liam’s patience or his nerves, every time I left my socks on the floor or forgot to wash my mug or was late for training, remembering that _I_ needed _him_ but _he_ had never needed _me._

“And then one afternoon, while I was alone, he came upstairs and sat by the bed. He didn’t say a word, barely even looked at me, but then he put his hand on my headd and that was it. A week later I was back in our old room with him, ‘though he didn’t touch me for almost a month. And a month after that it was like nothing ever happened.”

“And Kesegowaase?”

Haytham’s voice is low and even but by now I know him better and I know he’s furious.

“He and Liam still barely speak. They’re civil, but they didn’t work or train together for years. Even though they were so close before.”

“And you?”

“He still trained me at the homestead but we never went hunting alone again.”

I pull away a little to look up at him and he brushes my hair away from my face, his fingers so light against my skin. I’ll never understand what he sees in me and I never want to lose him.

“But it’s all over, it’s finished.”

He kisses my forehead then draws me closer, half tucked under him.

“I suppose so.”

Now his lips are against my temple, warm and deliberate. It hasn’t changed anything.

“All the same, if I ever get my hands on either of them…”

His arms tighten when I shiver and I just want to be back in our bed, in our room, in our house, safe and far away from these memories.

“Haytham?”

“Mmm?”

“When we get home, could we…?”

He tilts my head up, smiling broadly, so happy with me.

“That’s the first time you’ve called Kenway House ‘home’. Ask me again.”

He rubs the tip of his nose against mine and I want his lips - just there, so close, on me.

“When we get home, could we…?”

“Yes, hawkling, when we’re back home you may have anything you want .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonder if anyone can guess which friend of Gist's will be making a guest appearance in the next chapter... XD


	12. Haytham | Not At My Command

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Morrigan takes on another passenger before starting on her return journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter done! Thank you for all the comments and kudos and welcome to any new readers! <3

**HAYTHAM**

_Mount Vernon, Virginia, March 1756_

 

“Go on, my loves. I’ll be back soon.”

Patient and gentle, George Washington herds his handful of eager, affectionate hounds back into the kennel and nods at the kennel master before we turn to cross the housing compound and its airy inner courtyard, as familiar to me after three days here as my bedroom at the Eagle’s Point plantation house.

“Do you hunt, Master Kenway?”

“I’ve been known to, though I haven’t had the time or the opportunity since I left England.”

“Once things have settled down, you’ll have to come back during the season. Lord Fairfax leads the hunt, you would meet interesting people from these parts. You can bring all your friends and stay here.”

“You are too kind.”

The corners of his mouth curve into the faintest of smiles.

“Am I? After all, as plantation owners, we’re near neighbours.”

“In that case, allow me to extend you the same invitation if you’re ever in New York during the season. My hounds are still in England but they’ll be making the crossing once things settle down.”

“I’m sure we can spare a couple of pups if any of ours have a successful litter. I’ll be sure to have them sent to you. No, no, don’t thank me, I’m sure it’s what my brother would have wanted.”

Indeed.

I’m on uncertain ground here. Lawrence Washington did ask that we not involve his brother in Templar business but as George has just reminded me, we are neighbours here in Virginia and this is but a social visit.

George Washington greeted me like an old family friend, knowing as he did that his older half-brother and I had been in close correspondence for years and that Lawrence had selected Eagle’s Point and negotiated its acquisition himself, presuming his brother had desired me to settle by him. On a clear day one can see Eagle Point’s densely forested north bank from the end of the wharf here and just a small domain separates the two plantations.

After passing beneath some creeper-covered arches, we come out onto the open hilltop overlooking the river and as we come to a slow stop, Washington smiles.

“I never tire of this view.”

I can well believe it. Over the days we’ve spent here as Washington’s guest, I’ve seen this view at dawn, at dusk, in sunlight and mottled by slow-moving clouds, and each time I’ve had to remind myself that this vast expanse of placid, peaceful water is not a lake but the very same river that flows by Eagle’s Point and brings such rhythm to the life there. The _Morrigan_ sits like a rose petal on a pond, undisturbed by the slightest ripple, moored by the wharf that extends into the expanse of placid, peaceful water that stretches away on either side, smooth as glass, until its ends disappear from sight, vast as an ocean if it weren’t for the gentle, mist-veiled Maryland hills on the opposite bank.

“You’re fortunate to have it.”

“I am. Though I only have the freehold, my brother gave his wife a life interest in the plantation. My father left me a different estate, Ferry Farm, further south near Fredericksburg - my mother lives there and manages it. I lease Mount Vernon from my sister-in-law. It’s worth it. And the farms have been producing well enough.”

That George Washington loves this estate and that he has great ambitions for it can be in no doubt. We’ve spent the last couple of days as fellow plantation owners, Washington showing me the site of projected buildings, the 170 acres his brother bough and the tract of land to the north of the estate he hopes to buy into the property, and I must confess myself impressed by his keen eye for opportunity, his inventiveness, his ability to make long-term plans and his intimate knowledge of the day-to-day business of running a farm.

“And are you happy with Eagle’s Point?”

“Very happy with it, yes. I could not have been better advised than I was by your brother. In truth, I’m only now beginning to fully understand how advantageous a deal he was able to broker for me. We haven’t reached anything like your levels of development and we’re not nearly as settled, but both the land and the waters are rich and generous. I think we’ll do well.”

I’m quite impatient to see it, Doctor Meadows and Captain Cormac have spoken of it with enthusiasm and Gist has been showing me his maps.”

Ah, of course. After all, Washington and Gist knew each other through the Ohio Company long before they went on a surveying expedition together some two and a half years ago and this already strong friendship was further deepened by their participation in the Braddock Expedition. Gist frequently boasts of having saved Washington’s life at least twice - claims that Washington has never denied.

Shay appears over the crest of the hill, smiling as he announces that the _Morrigan_ has been loaded and is ready to set sail while the wind is right. Is it the prospect of spending more time on his beloved ship that makes him so happy or that of leaving this beautiful estate where I have so often caught him in moments of inattention, looking downcast?

“Thank you again for offering to take me to Boston, Captain Cormac.”

“Ah, it’s no trouble.”

When Washington mentioned he was thinking of going up to Boston to see Governor Shirley, Shay instantly offered him a lift on the Morrigan and it was agreed that we’d stop for a day or so at Eagle’s Point on our way back downriver so Washington could visit the plantation and perhaps make recommendations, and that after a stop in New York to drop me off and resupply, they will continue on to Boston.

Tall andgrave, Washington asks Shay a few technical, practical questions about the ship and its men - her burthen, the difficulty of crewing her and keeping discipline aboard - and listens closely to his answers as we stroll down the hillside.

He does listen far more than he talks, and he listens with gravity and attention, something unusual in one so young, and perhaps it is that, along with his natural dignity, his poise and his deliberate speech, that make him seem older - no, not older, _mature_ \- beyond his years, though he is, in fact, about Shay’s age.

This veneer of wisdom is not entirely spurious. His ideas on farming, business, and even his political views on the necessity for more coordination between colonies, are all very sound. And yet his actions to date have not borne out the cautious success of his private affairs since, so far, Washington’s military career comprises the attack on Jumonville that caused this escalation in violence, which may yet result in war; the loss, a mere week later, of Fort Necessity, that he had boasted would withstand an attack by five hundred men, at the hands of Jumonville’s brother; and while I hardly lay the blame for the failure of the Braddock Expedition at Washington’s feet, it was hardly a glorious undertaking. And Washington clearly still has pretensions at military command since his aim in going to see Shirley is to request a commission to lead the southern forces.

As we near the water’s edge I can see the barest ripples along the surface as the light breeze skims it, the variations in colour like the movement of silk.

“Aye, well, if it’s transport you’re interested in, you’d be better off with something like a flat-bottomed barge. Less likely to run aground or hitting the riverbed in shallow waters and easier to load cargo into.”

“Are they not more difficult to manoeuvre around the river bends and so on?”

“Aye, well, they won’t be as good a sailor as a brig like the _Morrigan_ but it won’t need to be, the river’s not difficult to navigate and tonnage’d be more valuable than manoeuvrability. The _Morrigan_ ’s keel lets her turn on a dime but then one loose canon in rough seas could tip us right over. If we go below I can show you how we spread the weight in her hold.”

The promise made to Lawrence Washington and witnessed by Jack Weeks, who is waving to us from the _Morrigan_ ’s deck, binds me as thoroughly as if I’d pledged the words myself but I can’t help wondering what I would be advising Washington - _ordering_ him - to do now if he had been part of the Order. Yes, morally every man that can should take part in the war effort but I think Washington better suited to a diplomatic or legislative role. A man with his practical and business experience understands the need for harmonised regulation and increased cooperation between the colonies. He will have the same difficulties trading his tobacco notes in Boston as I do mine in New York, he knows that frontier areas cannot be made to bear the brunt of attacks from the French and the natives alone, he has made a case for them before. He should be able to understand that together we stand stronger not just against the British but against the French too and that together we might have faced the various threats to the colonies more efficiently.

But George Washington is not mine to command, his successes and failures will be his alone.

He follows with great attention the long sequence of orders Shay gives, relayed by Gist, to get the ship under sail and there was some wistfulness in his tone when he speaks.

“Your mate must be a very able captain to be so trusted by the Royal Navy.”

“I’m assured he is.”

The two of them got off to a stilted start - Shay filled with secret regrets and guilt and Washington unsure how to treat a former pirate who is now simultaneously the mate of an influential society man and the captain of ship flying a British ensign. But they soon found common footing. They’re a similar age and both hoping to take an active part in the coming war - and perhaps Gist too put in a good word for the captain he so unabashedly supports. And Shay’s manner, while friendly, is deferential at its heart.

Eventually the _Morrigan_ is under way and when Shay returns he and Washington go to stand by the gunwale, looking out as a wreck of seabirds swoops low then lands on the water in a long flurry of black-tipped white wings and cawing beaks. The wind carries fragments of their conversation over to my position by the ship’s wheel.

“It’s an easy river to navigate, with plenty of bays and natural moorings, and quite close to the sea. I read that Blackbeard and some other pirates sometimes berthed lower down the river.”

“Yes, particularly in an area just above the mouth of the river before it joins the Bay. Both the Virginian and Maryland sides of the river have plenty of inlets to hide in.”

“Aye, we saw them on our way up. You know the river well, sir.”

“I’ve always had a fascination with it. Mount Vernon was settled by my grandfather and he came over to the colonies as first mate of the _Sea Horse of London_ , so my family’s history has always been closely tied to the Potomac. In a way it is the cradle of civilisation here in the colonies. Eagle’s Point was one of the first places John Smith landed during his first exploratory trip out of Jamestown.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I once saw the maps he made at the time. The whole area is quite recognisable.”

They fall into companionable silence, occasionally broken as they point out passing things of interest to each other - a turtle, a fish, a type of tree, another bald eagle nest, high in the fork of a tall tree and some five feet across.

“I was sorry to hear about your brother.”

“How kind of you to say, Captain Cormac.”

“You must miss him. I hear… he was a good brother to you and him dying before his time the way he did… must’ve been hard.”

“He was. And it was, I felt a deal of anger at first. But over the past year I’ve wondered if he did die before his time. When the will was read and we looked at the estate we found all his papers in affairs in perfect order, it was clear that in this respect he’d been perfectly prepared. He’d been sick for months with no hope of recovery, nothing to look forward to but to linger on in suffering for a few months more. He was always an active, enterprising man and it has occurred to me since that he would not have wanted to die bedridden, no more than the shadow of his former self. I would not want it for myself.”

“I see.”

Poor Shay.

He was carrying this guilt long before we received our invitation to Mount Vernon and I know that in his heart he wishes he could make a complete confession and a fuller apology, and that he knows he cannot.

Catching Gist’s eye, I nod curtly and he abandons his post to join them, throwing an arm around each and lobbing a bawdy anecdote about his favourite Boston barmaid into the conversation with all the subtlety of a grenade. Perfect.

Later, much later, Shay joins me in his cabin, smiling widely as he shrugs his coat off cold-stiffened limbs. No doubt he’s been at the wheel again.

“Happy, Shay?”

I push the chair back so he can settle on my lap and in a moment his arms are around me, his cold nose and lips against my neck.

“Aye. Thank you for this.”

We fall silent and I press my lips against his nose, his lips, his chin, and cup his cheek in my hand, trying to warm him. I think I’ll never tire of having him in my arms.

I’m glad I organised this trip. My visit to Eagle’s Point was long overdue and I’m glad John was able to see more of the country and what I’m trying to achieve at the plantation. And Shay has enjoyed it even more than I’d expected - it’s been such a joy to see him happy. Shay needs to be busy, to feel useful, he will continue to be busy and useful. By the time he returns from Boston he will only have a few days rest before he starts convoy duty, protecting merchant ships on their way down the coast and to the West Indies. Just the kind of work he enjoys. Shay is so excited he mentions it at least once a day and James Cook assured me he’s been given the safest routes so I may let him go with an easy conscience. I will and I will be glad to.

But I’m still anxious about him. His vision returned but his heats still have not - strange to think I was once so worried he might be pregnant. He’s been happy during this trip but it has also brought things to the surface that I would rather let settle. With all my money and my power and my influence as Grand Master, I still cannot shield him from the dark things in his past and the memories that make him suffer.

For now, I just want to take my hawkling home, and, for a time, have him as safe and warm there as I can make him.

| George Washington and Christopher Gist on the Allegheny River |

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of the Virginia arc! Hope you enjoyed it!


	13. Hope | A Laughable Pretence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, back in New York...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone! <3 
> 
> Just checking in with Liam and Hope then back to Shay, I think :) 
> 
> *WARNINGS FOR EXPLICIT CONTENT*

**HOPE**

_Greenwich, New York, March 1756_

 

Peeling paint and long, deep cracks in the walls and the dark-painted support timber that I know from experience let in the damp - the backend of an old tavern that has always looked like it’s just gone out of business. I didn’t leave our Greenwich headquarters until just before sundown but I’ve seen this building many times before, after all I scouted it, so I know that its looks are improved by the falling darkness.

It’s at the shortest distance from Kenway House, which is just the last of the line of mansions that sit along an elevation a few hundred yards away, looking down on this tavern and the other edge-of-the-world buildings cordoned off by the last of the city’s muddy, boot-trodden streets and the last of it’s strung lines of street lights.

The distant lights look familiar, blurry through the water-laden fog as they often are at this time of the evening and at this time of the year. How many times did I stand in just this spot, in the heavy damp air, looking at those lights, grateful to almost be almost back, already thinking of its dry warmth, already looking forward to being inside.

I don’t have as far to go tonight. Three and a half floors up, in an abandoned attic above the tavern, under the roof tiles that are now neither grey nor brown, is the base of Liam’s little surveillance cell. Just three short flights of stairs.

But I’m not sure I should be here.

Liam is alone up there. Shay and Kenway have been away for days so Liam sent the rest of his team away on short missions, staying here alone to keep an eye on the house. He suggested that I join him up here this evening for a quiet dinner and to discuss how our operations are going and tell me what he’s learnt over the last few days. Only he and I can know what a laughable pretence that is.

Most evenings, once Kenway House has been shuttered up for the night and there’s even less to see than during the daytime, Liam comes down my base in central Greenwich to report on the day’s intelligence and discuss Brotherhood business. And spends the night there.

Of course, everyone thinks we’re working. After our recent setbacks we have to pull together and they’ve all assumed that Liam and I have even more work to do than before. It’s not completely untrue, and we do usually spend a few hours working. And though we do occasionally lock the door for an hour or so, we keep ourselves available for questions and emergencies at a moment’s notice.

Liam and I trained together when I first joined the Brotherhood but then Liam was always based either at the homestead or on the ship while I’ve always been here in the city. Even when we were at the homestead together, we were always careful not to work too closely together for too long, in case someone noticed something.

These last few weeks… Our characters are compatible, we sensed that from the start, but we work together better than either of us expected. We plan the same way, we weigh risks and outcomes the same way - we can discuss outcomes and strategies coolly and thoroughly. None of the operations we’ve planned have failed yet and we’ve slowly and discreetly started rebuilding our New York network. My respect for him has deepened and I think his for me has too.

But Liam wants more. He’s free now and he knows nobody would hold it against him if he moved on from Shay - most _want_ him to. But my situation hasn’t changed.

A shiver and I force my hunched shoulders straight, they’ve gone stiff with the cold.

I have to go in or go back and I can’t turn back now.

Soon enough I’m upstairs knocking our secret cypher onto the door and Liam opens the door for me, darkly outlined against the lit interior. He takes my bag from me as I step in, closes the door behind us, then pulls me in for a long kiss.

“You all right?”

“Yes, just thought walking would keep me warmer.”

“I just made coffee and dinner’ll be ready whenever we want it.”

He goes over to the small wood stove and busies himself pouring coffee while I take off my coat, scarf and gloves. Even my boots feel cold and damp so I start unlacing those too.

The place has changed to suit purpose, nearly as bare of furnishings as when we first took it over but now there are mugs and discarded bits of gear here and there and the walls are covered in maps and notes, as is a solid work table pushed up to a wall. A gleaming telescope, one of Chevalier’s best, pokes between the dark curtains, mounted on a makeshift tripod.

Liam hands me a steaming cup of coffee and hold it with both hands to warm them as Liam kneels by my feet to finish undoing my boots. In all the years we’ve been together I’ve never even taken off my boots in his presence.

He stands them up by the stove then comes to sit by me, holding his own cup of coffee.

It’s strange to see him in such a small space. He was built for big open spaces - the frontier, the oceans. He can’t stand straight in most parts of the room and all his movements are different, small and contained.

“How are things on your end?”

“Fine. That job with the Brewery Gang went perfectly,” I pause to take a sip of coffee that warms me through like lightening, “I had a letter from Chevalier.”

Liam looks up quickly.

“Does he know where they went?”

“He says they went south along the coast.”

“You mean he didn’t follow them?”

“He couldn’t, Liam, you know that. The Morrigan was always our fastest ship and Chevalier had business up north. Besides, he thinks it was probably just a pleasure cruise - they took all the canons out before leaving and they even brought that doctor with them. I have his letter here, you can read it yourself if you want.”

Liam takes the letter and goes to stand by a lamp, frowning at the paper.

Chevalier only dedicates one short paragraph to the Kenways’ departure from New York. He wants us to adhere as strictly as possible to the terms of the truce - well, to be seen to, at least - and offer Kenway no provocation, his close alliance with the French depends on it. He also has bigger problems that he’s detailed over the rest of the page, overleaf, and the next three pages.

“They’re still deporting Acadians…”

“Aye.”

“Some have been sitting in ships in Boston harbour since December… They are dying by the score.”

“Aye.”

“They’re our allies and tactically our position in the-.”

“Aye, Hope, I know.”

This has been going on for weeks and I know Liam receives the same news in perhaps even more detail directly from Kesegowaase who is up there keeping the resistance movement together. He’s probably heard the same news from Achilles who, of course, still writes to him but none of us has been able to make him address the issue.

This quest to recover the manuscript allows him to morally wash his hands of all our other problems. But I doubt getting the manuscript back will win us this war whereas ignoring the very real and pressing threats we face may just be enough to lose it.

“He also says that the situation in Europe is worsening and that-.”

“There’s bound to be war, aye, but it might not be as ‘imminent’ as Chevalier and his French friends think. Three of Kenway’s six months have already gone by, another three and the agreement lapses. And we’ll be free to get the manuscript, Hope, the very _minute_ it does - _if_ we know where it is.”

“Do you have any leads?”

“Nothing solid yet but we’re getting closer. We’ve still got someone playing gardener in the next villa and we might be able to get one of our guys into Kenway’s place.”

“Aren’t you worried Shay might recognise one of ours?”

Liam’s gaze drops and a muscle twitches in his jaw.

“We’ve identified the tradesmen that supply them - deliverymen, messengers too, people like that - many of them stop at the tavern here and we have drinks with some of them - we’ve been posing as day labourers, travelling bootblacks - they’ve started to open up a little.”

“Did you learn anything today?”

“Not today but-,” he stands and fetches a notebook from the table, “I was going over the information we’ve gathered so far and we’re starting to have an idea of how the house is run - we really might be able to get someone into the house or eventually circumvent the security.”

As he shows me the notebook, he continues to talk about the household routines - what time deliveries are made to the kitchens, how much flour they buy in each week, how much butter, at what time they eat and who with, at what times Kenway usually has his men of business in the house, what times he usually leaves the house, when his study is most often empty and a million other details of the household’s rhythm. Fleetingly, I see that there are several notes on Shay’s habits and movements but Liam doesn’t mention them at all.

The notebook is just for show, he barely looks at it as he rattles off times and names and menus and they paint such a clear, evocative picture that for a moment I believe that he’s been in there and looked around and watched them, Kenway and Shay, going about their lives.

That’s what he wants.

Liam’s always hated Kenway but now this thing with Shay… Even now that it has become plain that Shay is not and likely never was pregnant, and that perhaps Kenway never touched him at all, he is still obsessed with their relationship and spying on it day in and day out has turned a morbid fascination into a sordid one.

He looks up at me, smiling and excited, as he shows me an order, countersigned in Kenway’s own hand, for several items of fine clothing - a pair of long, floor-length coats and matching waistcoats, shirts, stockings, all unmistakably for Shay.

I can’t help staring at Liam. He’s like a stranger.

_Does he still believe Kenway has the manuscript? That he ever had it?_

I let him chatter on about the expensive-looking dogs that are taken for a walk each day, the ladies who visit, how long they stay, who they’re married to - a million details about Shay, without ever mentioning him.

As he warms up our dinner of lentils and a couple of slices of gammon bought from one of the Kenway farms, he tells me they now know at which stalls and markets the estate’s farmers sell at, they’ve spoken to some of the farmers and discussed the possibility of day work.

“We could place someone new inside, someone who wouldn’t be recognised.”

“It’s too risky, Liam. Kenway surely has security protocols in place and Shay will spot an assassin from a hundred yards away, you know how good his vision is.”

“Well, we’ll see how it goes. An unknown man at one of the outer farms probably wouldn’t attract much attention from anyone.”

“After the deal lapses then. Liam, promise me. You’re more at risk than anyone else if Kenway thinks we’ve broken our word.”

After dinner, we sit together at a comfortable distance from the stove, just watching each other. We’ve done this before but always with the thought, in the back of our minds, that someone might walk in at any moment. Liam is in his socks too and our toes are touching.

Then Liam puts his cup down and comes over to me, kneeling at my feet, his calloused hands running my legs to my knees, pushing up my skirts so he can settle between my legs, his thumbs now stroking the insides of my thighs then inching higher.

Looking into his eyes, I reach out to stroke his head, just over his ear, the stubble of hair prickly smooth against my palm, as his fingers move up to touch me.

After weeks of constant worry and shocks, it’s nice to just be together for a few hours, to sit back and think of nothing but Liam’s fingers between my legs, err erring and insistent. Soon Liam’s hands move up to grab my hips and tug them to the edge of the chair and he ducks under my skirt and I let my head fall back when I feel his hot mouth on me.

When he reappears he puts his hands on my waist then moves them up slowly before stopping, his thumbs brushing over my breasts.

Still looking at me, he starts to unbutton the front of my bodice and when I stand to slip out of my jacket and waistcoat, he comes to stand behind me and loosen the laces of my corset, slipping his hands into it as soon there’s enough give. He’s never done this for me before, it takes too long to undo and redo and we’ve always worked around it but I know he’s often wanted to and tonight we finally have the time and privacy we need.

“All off?”

His breath is soft and wet in my ear and I nod. He’s wanted this for years and I have no reason to deny him. But I can’t remember the last time another person saw me completely naked - I don’t think even I have - and maybe Liam senses my hesitation.

He moves away and starts undressing, taking off layer after layer. He’s glorious. Broad and heavy with muscle, every inch an alpha. I’ve seen him bare-chested before at the homestead in the summer, rubbing down the horses, chopping wood. He and Kesegowaase used to train like that, stripped to the waist, gleaming with sweat. Kesegowaase was the only one strong enough and fast enough to really challenge Liam.

But I hadn’t seen him undressed in months and now, as his shirt comes off, I see marks on his body. The same marks I’d seen on his wrists. Rope burns. Broken glassy stiles that criss-cross over his chest and shoulders. His waist. Now he loosens his breeches and as they come off more scars are revealed, over his hips, his thighs. I’m not sure how he got scars in those places. I’m not sure I want to think about it and I don’t want to talk about it so I look up at his face instead.

He comes over, towering over me, and cradles my face in his large hands, bending down to kiss me, hard and deep. And then he undresses me, his blue eyes so clear and soft as they look at me.

“I want to look at you.”

And with that he goes over to the bed and lies down on his back - he knows I prefer it this way.

Pressing my hands onto his chest for balance, I settle onto him. I watch him grit his teeth and feel his warm hands on my waist, his fingers splayed over my lower back, sliding down to cup each cheek, slow and deliberate, still watching me, like he’s waited all his life for this.

And he still waits. He waits for me to move, to pick up the pace. He doesn’t rush me, just his grip on me tightens and his hips move in time with mine, watching me as I ride him, taking my pleasure of him.

I love seeing him like this, laid out for me, letting me use him. Meshing my fingers with his, I lean forward and push his hands above his head, taking him deeper, watching him catch his breath and grit his teeth as I ride him harder, closing my eyes as I move faster, getting nearer and nearer until finally I burst then melt, crushing his fingers between mine as I overflow.

Bowing my head, I press my forehead against his and feel his fingers tangle in my hair.

“Hope?”

His voice quiet and tight, he’s still waiting.

As I move off him, he props himself up on his elbow, his alpha pride straining, and I get settle on my elbows and knees - it’s his turn now and he likes it this way. The last few weeks have been difficult for him and he deserves this.

Should I let him finish inside me, the way he’s always wanted to? It would do no harm, not at this time of the month, but I don’t want him to develop a taste for something he won’t be able to do again.

His hard, heated member presses against me as he leans forward to press a line of kisses down my back before taking himself in hand and pressing himself against me in that familiar way.

But maybe he’s more impatient than usual or maybe I’m wetter - this time, as he pushes in, he slips upwards and as he rests _there_ \- for less than a breath, less than the blink of an eye - and my heart stops. I know what he’s thinking - that if he takes me _there_ , the way he took _Shay_ , he could come inside me without danger. I shiver, breaking out in cold sweat, waiting for him to ask permission, steeling myself against him, determined to deny him.

But he pushes back down without a word and I hear myself breathe out a shuddering breath as I brace myself instinctively. But this time, I don’t relish the feel of him inside me the way I usually do. Instead of that delicious friction, of the heat of him filling me, I just feel something hard and foreign ploughing into me, prodding and poking as he ruts into me.

My whole body feels cold and I just want this to be over, I want him out of me and away from me. So I murmur the usual encouragements and make the sounds he expects to hear unit I feel he’s close and then move away, taking no pleasure, this time, in watching him bring himself to completion, wondering if this is something else he wants me to do for him.

He pulls the blankets over us and puts his arms around me, soon falling asleep.

But even the heat of his body can’t warm me and I spent the night cold and still as a stone.


	14. Shay | Flying Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally put to work, Shay and the Morrigan accompany convoys of merchant ships but his thoughts stray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the delay and thank you for all the kudos and comments! <3  
> Next chapter will be a Haytham one, hopefully coming soon!

****

**SHAY**

_Providence, Rhode Island*, March 1756_

 

Stepping out of Governor Hopkins’ townhouse, I slip all the letters and papers I was entrusted with into the leather envelope where I keep all of Master Kenway’s messages. Gist follows me out, sweeping down the short stairs almost into the path of a horse cart loaded with rum barrels and after whirling out of harm’s way he looks after it wistfully. Clearing my throat, I start down the street, motioning him to follow me.

“That’s our business done here. Think the other ships’ll be ready to leave?”

Gist makes a show of rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“ _Well_ , just to err on the side of caution, why don’t we stop for a drink and give them just a little more time?”

“Gist, you scoundrel, I promised the boss and the colonel I’d help keep you sober.”

“I’ve spent many years building up a resistance to drink, captain, I assure you one drink won’t do any harm. It might even do a lot of good, put some warmth into these old bones.”

Aye, well, the sky _is_ turning stormy but the idea that Gist, a born and bred frontiersman and tougher than an old piece of boiled leather, is bothered by the unseasonably mild weather here makes me smile.

And anyway, the turn of the tide is still hours away.

“All right, one drink then. Ale, not whisky. You had so much rum down in Jamaica I’m surprised you didn’t drown.”

“Bottles of rum float, captain, I was taking precautions for the trip back!”

Gist knows Providence - especially it’s dockside taverns - a lot better than I do so I follow him and we’re soon settled at a window table with a pint each. Can’t remember the last time I sat down for a drink like this. Don’t really want to. It was a lifetime ago, before the first of November, and at the first familiar malty, caramel whiff, I realise I haven’t really missed it.

Still, it’s pleasant and so’s Gist’s company. And Providence is very pleasant.

From our seats by the window, we can still hear the creak and thud of wheels and hard-soled shoes against the cobbled streets bustling with people hurrying about their business, carts and wheelbarrows piled high - tobacco, rum and whisky in coopered barrels, furs, whale oil, crates of sugar cane going one way and bags of refined sugar going the other. The people are neatly dressed in good wool clothes and they look cheerful and busy.

I’d never been to Providence before, only as far as Newport where Liam and I had been several times and where I stopped on the way here to drop off more letters and messages on Master Kenway’s behalf and I would have dropped my little convoy off at the mouth of Narragansett Bay if I hadn’t had to come into Providence on more Order business.

“The boss seems to know a lot of people here in Rhode Island.”

“He does. Master Kenway has had a solid understanding with the politicians - both sides - here almost since he arrived. He spent some time here after the Braddock thing when he - well, he wanted to get away from Boston and Kenway House wasn’t ready yet. He stayed with Stephen Hawkins, who you just met. He wasn’t governor yet and he and Master Kenway discussed money.”

“Aye, Master Kenway did say something about paper money and a common financial system of currency exchange for the colonies before I left. Not sure I understood it all. But I can see why he’d like it here.”

“We were going to set up a base here but… well, I suppose we’ll get back to it when the situation settles down. For now, the lines of communication between New York and Rhode Island are good enough that we can do without a physical presence.”

In a fit of excess, one of the card players at the next table knocks his tankard off the table and as it clanks around the floor, the warm, slightly cloying scent of its content floats up through the air. One of the barmaids comes over to clean it up, apron tied tight around her waist, skirts and petticoats swinging gently, raised just clear of her feet in their neat little clogs. Something else I’m now indifferent to.

“Does Rhode Island think very much like New York?”

“Oh yes. If anything, Rhode Island is even more liberal-minded than New York. Master Kenway would tell you that it’s almost his ideal for the colonies. Good relations with the local and neighbouring tribes, a hard-working population freed from most superstitions - no witch hunts or religious imperatives - and they abolished slavery decades ago.”

“Did they? But I’m sure I saw-.”

I’m sure I saw what looked like slaves in the shipyards when we were there to stock up on supplies for the _Morrigan_. And I have an idea that if I looked I’d find more in the rum distilleries and sugar refineries.

“Yes, well, some people _do_ bend the law - the temptation of bigger profits and the facilitations of power, Master Kenway would say. Many in Providence benefit from trade with Africa and the West Indies - and when enough turn a blind eye… But at least the law is what it is and Master Kenway always says that it’s a a step in the right direction.”

So it is, too. ‘Specially compared to places like Virginia, covered in plantations that run on slaves and where there’s a deep-seated desire to keep things just as they are. That’s why Eagle’s Point is so important to Master Kenway. Couldn’t say I completely understand the Order’s ideals and how it works but I think I’m starting to have a better idea of Master Kenway’s and how he works to achieve them. He’s like on of those floating ice islands we see up north - seen at a distance he’s all words and lace, but then you feel the brush of his influence and realise how hard and far-reaching it is, just beneath the surface but invisible to most.

Can’t wait to get back to him.

We’ll be getting back days ahead of schedule too. After escorting one convoy of West Indiamen down to Jamaica, we’re escorting another back up to the northern colonies. We just dropped off another couple here and came ashore to resupply at Providence’s well-stocked shipyards and carry out some business on Master Kenway’s behalf, before taking the last of the convoy up to Boston. This last leg of the trip is just a swing around the cape but the merchant captains were given a bit of a scare by a half-hearted attack by a couple of pirate ships while practically still in sight of Kingston, even though the first shower of mortar fire from the _Morrigan_ dissuaded them. We’ll escort them up but we won’t put into harbour. I have no business in Boston this time and Master Kenway doesn’t like me hanging around there, the Assassin presence being so much stronger than in New York.

“Speaking of money, Shay, do we get anything for fending off those pirates?”

“Fendin’ off, Gist? They never worked up the courage to even _try_ takin’a shot at us after we fired the mortar. But aye, if the Company counts it as an engagement then there might be somethin’ in it for us. I think Captain Cook said something about a percentage of the value of the cargo but I suppose there’d have to’ve been a real threat to it for that.”

“And who’s word do they take regarding how real the threat was?”

“Well, I’ll be sending my report and I expect each of the captains will make theirs.”

“I see… Well, there’s hope yet.”

Gist finishes off his second pint and we head back to the _Morrigan_ and pick our way through the Bay, slipping past island after island until we reach Newport again, where the rest of the convoy is waiting, bobbing gently on the waves. Watching the merchantmen file out, their sails slowly dropping, filling, and finally straining, my mind wanders back to Master Kenway. I’ve missed him. I miss him now. The closer I get to him the more impatient I am to be with him again.

The days are still short but there's still some light and the moon and stars are visible in the cloud-darkened sky. The same moon and the same stars hang above Kenway House, andI wonder if they’re occasionally veiled by fast-moving clouds there too. Rain clouds, or I don’t know my business, but the wind likely won’t change and that’s all I really care about.

After the drop-off in Boston, I plan to have the _Morrigan_ sail through the night. If the wind holds it will speed us back to New York but at the moment it is against us and the merchantmen, thick and heavy with cargo, are slow sailors at the best of times, and the _Morrigan_ , lighter and more manoeuvrable despite our guns, spent the trip to Jamaica falling back and adjusting her trim to keep slow pace with the other ships. The crew are used to flying from or after the enemy, not herding great lumbering merchantmen, but they took to it good-naturedly enough and I kept them busy. Accommodating the mortar took some doing, had to move it around a bit on deck and we had to try a few different ways of distributing the weight below decks - still think we might have to shift the water tank some and change the rake of the masts a little, maybe a few degrees. And I’ll need to fine-tune the new sail plans - Captain Cook might agree to look them over.

Soon enough, Boston’s lights come into view through the haze and as our protégés turn into the bay, the _Morrigan_ stands off, swaying gently under the roar of the twenty-one gun salute from our departing companions.

A twenty-one gun salute. Just like any Royal Navy ship. The Shay I was six months ago would’ve been livid at the thought. What’ll Liam think when he finds out? What would my father have thought? Of his omega son, that he must’ve died being so worried for, captain of a warship flying the White Ensign, protecting merchant ships just like his. He’d’ve been so proud. And he’d’ve been so grateful to Master Kenway for givin’ me all of this and protecting me.

Aye, father’d have like Master Kenway, and respected him too.

“Come about!”

A sharp order from Gist and soon the Morrigan starts carving a long arch into the water’s surface, bringing her bow about, the crew easy and practiced in the manoeuvre, until, after days of sailing close hauled and tacking into the wind, we feel the air move across our beam and I can feel the smile on my face spreading on the face of every other man aboard, and soon we’re running.

“Alright, boys, all sails! Courses, tops’ls, gallants and let’s use the stuns’ls while we still can!”

“We can hang our kerchiefs along the sheets too, captain, if it’ll get you home faster.”

“Don’t tempt me, Jones. I think we have a few spare spars lying around somewhere and after days spent going slower than a rowboat I might just ask you lot to throw up a moonraker**.”

Jones grins at the empty threat - we shouldn’t even really be using the gallants with the mortar where it is and the weather turning - and as we watch, the sails drop down in a cascade of crimson, the rippling creases billow slightly then smooth out and fill and there’s that familiar creak and quickening as the pull from the sails is carried through the rigging to the body of the ship, harder and harder until we’re running, flying before the wind.

And for a while I stand on my quarterdeck, the wind at my back flicking my hair into my face, while above and behind us the storm clouds unfurl and roll, eating up the stars behind us, chasing us, ever closer until finally -

“Clews up! Bring the stuns’ls in!”

Even after reducing sail we still glide and skip, barely slowing at all, blown along by the storm’s outstretched fingers, hurried along by a sea that seems as impatient as I am to get us home. To get back to _him_.

The stars in the low, dark skies ahead of us are like his eyes on me, still and always watching, like a promise, like his usual reminder to _be patient, Shay_ , and I want - I _need_ \- his touch, his mouth on me and I’m almost burning up with the want of it when a flash then a shattering crack rend the sky and then a drop, then two, then rain everywhere - on my lips, in my hair, slipping past my collar down the back of my neck - such a torrent of rain upended on us in a moment that we’re soon all soaked with it and Gist and I glance at each other and I can’t help laughing.

“Sir?”

I can feel the crew watching and smiling and shaking their heads.

“We’re going home, Gist!”

Laughing again, I throw my head back, letting the rain fall onto my face, my throat, letting it trickle down my neck into my clothes, laughing at going so _fast_ and so easy, after weeks at sea finally going back were we belong.

Flying home.

Carried home by the elements, as though they were carrying out his command to me. The one he had inscribed into a band of silver and diamonds.

_Always fly home to me._

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations  
> ** Moonraker: the topmost possible square sail after skysails, royals, gallants, topsails, and courses.


	15. Haytham | By Installments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning from convoy duty, Shay makes an unusual request of Haytham.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNINGS FOR EXPLICIT CONTENT* 
> 
> Thank you for the kudos and comments! Welcome to any new readers and welcome back to any returning ones! <3

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, March 1756_

 

A knock at the study door, barely audible above the sound of the rain battering the walls and darkened windows, and I look up in time to see a figure slip in, in a shirt, breeches and stockings, barefoot and grinning widely.

_Shay._

He’s early. Days early.

I’ve barely the time to push back my chair before he’s straddling my lap, his shirt damp, his breeches soaked, his mouth hot and demanding on mine.

_God, I’ve missed him._

And if the heat of his kiss and press of his fingers against my skull are anything to go by, he’s missed me too and by the time he releases me he’s breathless and gasping.

“I’m sorry. You were working.”

My hawkling looks not the slightest bit sorry.

“Never mind that, Shay. Let me look at you. Why are you so wet?”

He laughs and straightens, raking back his damp hair.

“Oh, we had rain all the way from Providence!”

“And did you make _any_ attempt to keep yourself out of it? Your shirt is soaked through to your skin! And your stockings-!”

“Aye, Barrington’s already scolded me. _And_ he took my coat _and_ my boots, _and_ he’s threatened me with a scalding hot bath. _And_ he said that even if I want to surprise _you_ , there’s no need to surprise _him_ so next time I should write ahead so he can have my bath and dinner ready.”

“Sounds like you got quite an earful, though in truth it’s no-.”

Another gurgle of laughter from Shay.

“No worse than I deserve! Aye, he told me that too.”

Crouching on my lap, he puts his arms around my neck and then I feel his lips against it, pushing down the folds of my cravat before mouthing their way up, along the nerves and muscle, up to my ear.

“Is that what he used to tell you when you misbehaved?”

“It is.”

It is hard to concentrate like this, with Shay’s body on top of me, cold and hot at once, his weight on me and around me, my senses full of the sight and sound and smell of him, his low husky voice a warm breath in my ear. He’s been gone barely a fortnight and I’m starved for him.

“How was your trip, hawkling?”

“Slow.”

Another short, breathless laugh.

“And hot. And humid. Warms you right to the bone. So does the food.”

“And the women?”

“Wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Shay chuckles, nips my neck, then reemerges.

“You should come with me next time.”

“As it happens, I will. I received a letter yesterday from the grand master in Havana detailing a situation that will require my personal attention. If it had arrived earlier I’d have gone with you. As it is, we’ll leave as soon as you’ve resupplied the _Morrigan_.”

The bliss on Shay’s face is blinding.

“There, I knew that would make you happy.”

And he descends onto me again, his mouth bruising, his fingers burrowing into my hair, deliberately mussing it, and I can’t help pressing my fingers against his flesh, sliding my hands down to his rump to draw him snug against me.

I know that Shay desires me, I see it whenever we’re together. But this is the first time he’s _shown_ me.

“So… you do want me…?”

Shay looks surprised at this. Yes, I suppose he’s never hidden it, but the driving force behind our relationship has always been _my_ desire for _him_.

Just now, his desire, his _want_ , are written all over his face and seeing it, I can’t help wondering if… But no. I can’t ask him. Shay’s so sensitive about his heats, if he’d had any suspicion at all that they were returning he would have told me. I wish I could make him understand how much I prefer seeing him like this, so knowingly and willingly hungry for me.

Warm and kittenish, he rubs his forehead against me temple, his nose against my cheek.

“Haytham…?”

_Haytham_ , is it?

“Mmm…?”

“Barrington said you’re having people to dinner but do you think it will last long?”

“There’s no particular reason why it should. It’s not a formal dinner. Just John, Monro and afew others. Why?”

A fleeting kiss against the corner of my mouth.

“You said…. that when I was stronger… we could try it rougher…”

So I did, but I’m still a little unsettled by how often and how easily Shay refers back to the promises and circumstances of our first night together.

“What did you have in mind, hawkling?”

I feel the press of his nose against my ear, the straining of his whole body against mine.

“Surprise me? Something you’ve wanted to do to me but haven’t dared yet? I want to try something new… Something adventurous.”

_Something adventurous._

Oh, and how well he knows me. I do have a long list of things I want to do to him but though our relationship feels strong, I still have concerns about the solidity of its foundations - sex brought Shay and I together but I never want him to think that it’s the only thing that _keeps_ us together.

And yet he wants this. And I’ve always suspected of sharing my tastes and drives.

“I expect I’ll think of something.”

Shay moves to look into my eyes, his hands bracketing my face, fingers still buried in my hair, then leans in for another hard kiss. A silent thank you.

“Shall I see you into your bath?”

As we go up, he tells me about his trip, chattering and cheerful, and I watch and listen and strip down to my shirt and breeches as he’s undressed then handed into the large copper tub.

“If I’m careful, I might just be able to wash your hair without getting my breeches wet, Shay. Then I’ll have to dress for dinner.”

“Would you let me wash your hair more often?”

“I would, but you never seem to be around when I have my bath. Barrington claims that if you keep any busier, Shay, he’ll have to employ a footman just to keep track of you.”

Shay chuckles and kisses my hand.

“Do you really need to go to Havana?”

“I do. If I could make up an excuse to run off to sea with you, I’d have done so long ago. We’ll have to stop in Kingston and a few other places too. I’m trying to convince John to come with us but he’s not comfortable leaving his patients for that long.”

After drying off and changing my shirt and leaving Shay in his valet’s capable but oft unemployed hands, I return downstairs to await my guests.

Dinner with close friends is usually a pleasant, relaxed affair and tonight is no exception, wine and conversation both flowing easily and yet my mind wanders out of the room, crosses the halls and tiptoes up the staircase to slip into the bedroom where Shay is no doubt having his dinner on a tray.

Barrington follows me up there once we’ve seen our guests off and we find the suite quiet and still and ablaze with candles and firelight. Shay’s tray sits abandoned on a side table, every cup, glass, bowl and plate on it emptied, and Shay himself is laid out before the fire, on the bearskin rug, wearing nothing but his banyan.

As he’s about to leave with the tray, Barrington pauses at the door to glance back at Shay, the flickering light creating the illusion of movement on his granite features.

“You still don’t understand it.”

“No, sir. But I don’t need to. I can see it.”

I blow out most of the candles, pour myself a drink then settle in my favourite armchair to watch Shay, relishing the pleasure of having him here, safe and sound, drinking in the sight of his long legs and their impossible ankles, the slender feet, and the slender hands lying pale and unfurled on the rug.

I am still mad about him.

I’d expected attrition. I’d thought that perhaps time and the friction of daily life would dull the acuteness of my affection and attraction to him. But they have not. They do not.

Shay’s fingers twitch and his whole body tenses into a slight stretch then relaxes as he raises his head to me, as though sensing my presence, and a sleepy smile creases his face.

“Hello.”

“Hello, hawkling.”

He sits up, crossing his long legs, and raises his arms above his head in amore determined stretch, the banyan falling open.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“No, I’m too warm.”

He gives me a long look from beneath lowered lashes, then lets the banyan drop from his shoulders, the dancing firelight reflected in the silk and gold and silver thread.

Soon he’s kneeling between my knees, his hands on my thighs, perfectly naked and smiling up at me sweetly though his intention is perfectly clear and he holds my gaze as he slides his hands up along my thighs then starts to undo my breeches.

“Aren’t you warm? Sir?”

“Just a little.”

He’s right, he’s warm. His usually cool hands are warm when he slips them into my breeches to stroke and squeeze my heated flesh then draw it out, bowing his head to me to run the very tip of his tongue from the head right along to the base of my shaft.

I watch him as he puts his mouth to me again and again - sometimes licking, sometimes kissing or sucking, sometimes tracing the throbbing vein along the underside with the flat of his tongue, and I take another sip of whisky and swallow hard as he takes the head into his mouth, his lips catching as he sucks, slowly drawing himself off it, then glances up at me, looking _very_ pleased with himself.

Warmed by the whisky and by the thought of how fortunate we are to so enjoy pleasing each other, I’m surprised to feel my blood run cold when a small shard of doubt forms deep in my chest, between my ribs. Is Shay just managing me the way he clearly used to manage O’Brien? Am I just projecting my feelings onto Shay?

But then Shay rubs his cheek against me, happy and playful as a kitten, and I remember that no, it was never like that between us. Not even that first night when I behaved so villainously.

Shay’s dark eyes are on me as he takes me deeper, into his throat, working his way up and down me, watching my every reaction closely until I manage to force a few words past my own choked up throat.

“May I, Shay?”

His only answer is to move further onto my shaft, swallowing hard, and I bury a hand in his hair to hold onto him as I come, gritting my teeth and shuddering as his moan vibrates around me.

Before I’ve had time to catch my breath, he’s settled on my lap again, his thumb pressing gently down on my bottom lip and teeth, his mouth on mine, the taste of my seed on his tongue.

“Thank you, Shay.”

“It was just an advance deposit, a first installment.”

“Ah, and here I thought you might have forgotten.”

“No such luck.”

He draws away to look at me, dark eyes veiled behind long, thick lashes, tremulous with nerves and desire.

“What… what will you do to me?”

What he really wants is for me to knot him. He’s asked often enough and I know how anxious he is to make up for his perceived shortcoming in not having heats to offer me. I won’t knot him, not yet, but I too can offer him a kind of guarantee, a first instalment.

“Well, if you’re willing, I thought I’d start preparing you to take a knot. By stretching you a little more and putting my hand inside you. The feeling of my fist will simulate the feeling of a knot.”

A flash of white as Shay bites his lip.

“Have you tried it?”

“I have.”

He nods.

“All right.”

“No, hear it all before you decide. I won’t be able to bite or squeeze your neck, Shay, I won’t be able to reach, so you’ll have to stay relaxed all on your own. I’ll need you to tell me if you’re uncomfortable or in pain or want me to stop. If you make any sudden movements, I might unintentionally hurt you.”

I pause to smile up at him and stroke my thumb over his cheek.

“That said, I know how to do it, I’ll prepare you and make it as easy as possible for you, there’s no reason why I should hurt you - in fact, it can be quite enjoyable. So, what do you think?”

Shay rubs his cheek against my hand, presses a kiss into my palm then gives a slow nod.

“Aye. Please.”

I pull him down for a long kiss then gently tip him off my lap.

“All right. While I get everything ready, why don’t you sit by the fire and help me look for something?”

Shay nods and settles onto the rug again and I soon set our box of toys down before him.

“We’re looking for something that looks like a long, slender hunting horn.”

“Think I know the one. Silver ends?”

“That’s right.”

As Shay settles to his task, I ask him a few questions about the planning of our upcoming trip. I’ve never been that far south, I have only a bookish sense of the climate and culture there. He chatters happily while I pull off my coat and various trappings, until I’m down to shirt and breeches, fetch a pail of water to hang by the fire as well as an assortment of towels, the decanter of sweet oil and the jar of ointment I usually use on him. The decanter I leave in the pail to warm up.

Just as I’m smoothing the last wrinkles out of the large towel I’ve draped over the persian ottoman, I hear Shay’s happy voice.

“Found it!”

“Good. Come along, Shay. No, don’t worry, I’ll clear up later.”

Shay joins me in a few strides, hands me the long, elegantly curved hollow horn then settles onto the ottoman and the sight of him bent over it like that, naked and willing, is enough to bring a fresh twinge of heat to my spent member.

But there’s tension in him - I can see it in the way the line of his spine dips into his back rather than out, by how prominent the twin dimples above his cheeks are, by the occasional fluttering twitch in his long, lean thigh muscles. So I stroke a hand up his back and bury my fingers in his hair, rubbing gently.

“Slow and steady, hmm? And you’re free to change your mind whenever you wish, Shay. Just tell me so.”

His cheek pressed against the towel, Shay looks back at me and nods slightly.

So much trust in those dark eyes.

Unhurried, I press a long kiss into the small of his back, reaching down to knead a pale, round cheek. I can barely make out the smell of him bend the dull, clean smell of soap and the sharper smell and taste of the pine-scented bathwater.

Bending lower and parting his cheeks, I kiss him there, feeling an instant shiver run through him.

“Relax, Shay. I’ll warn you before I do anything new and I won’t for some time yet. Try to enjoy it.”

Shay nods. His eyes are still on me but they close as I put my mouth to him again and soon I feel the tension in him lessen as he sinks into the familiar pleasure, his breathing lengthening and deepening. He opens his eyes again to watch me but says nothing as I apply a liberal amount of warm ointment before easing a finger into him, eliciting a quiet hiss of pleasure - he’s learnt to enjoy this too - and he sighs happily, his whole body tensing a moment and his thighs parting a little more, when I add a second. I indulge him for a long while before pushing his limits a first time by adding a third, watching Shay’s back arch up as he adjusts. It is still a little uncomfortable for him but he’s no longer as fearful as he once was and when I reach deep to brush my fingertips against that sensitive place inside him, he pushes back against me.

“Easy, Shay. Easy. There you go.”

“Haytham? Thank you for… always…”

“It is my pleasure, hawkling, you know I enjoy it.”

He looks up, curious but trusting, when I withdraw and stand to fetch the pail of water containing the decanter of oil now warmed through, and as I apply a generous coating of ointment to the smaller end of the horn, I answer his unspoken question.

“The oil will help reduce the friction once I’m inside. It may feel a little strange at first, Shay, but it won’t hurt.”

Shay nods and stays still and easy as I start easing the horn into him. It is, in fact, a funnel made from a single, gently curved and gently tapered horn, rimmed on either side with the smoothest bit of silver, it’s cloudy grey surface polished to an incredible shine.

I only push it a few inches, sensing Shay’s body seizing up slightly in instinctive resistance, and after checking the oil’s temperature, I start to trickle it into the wider end of the horn. No reaction at first, then a small sound of surprise.

“Are you ok, Shay?”

“Aye… I… It’s new.”

“Tell me if you want me to stop or if you’re uncomfortable, and warn me if you need to move.”

“Aye.”

Yes, I remember how strange the the warm liquid feels as it spreads into unfamiliar places. Not unpleasant, exactly, but new, as Shay puts it.

A little more oil, I carefully pull the horn back out, spread the drip over Shay then push my fingers back into his now very slick heat.

Shay gasps softly, now pressing his forehead against the towel, his back arching again, before he presses back, impatient for me to touch him _there_. And so I do and as he glances back at me, I catch sight of his heated gaze.

“All right, Shay, relax, I’m going to add another.”

He nods and bites down on the towel, ready, and I caress his back soothingly a moment before pushing my little finger into him. I continue to soothe him and eventually warn him and press a few kisses onto his back before gently adding my thumb, tucking it up beneath my other fingers while loosening my joints to collapse my hand into its smallest possible shape, prompting a sharp intake of breath from Shay. But he does so well and doesn’t tense up too much and after he’s had time to open up and adjust, I prepare to push past the knuckles.

“Now, relax, Shay, and slowly, _slowly_ , push against me.”

He obeys and in the low light, the shadows deepen on his now sweat-slick body as it tenses yet again and he gasps as my knuckles push past the tight muscle and it draws me in to the wrist, my fingers curling in until my hand rests in a loose fist inside him.

It has taken over an hour to get to this point.

“There, Shay. Easy. There. You did so well, hawkling. How do you feel?”

“Full,” he mumbles sleepily into his arm, “But I’m all right.”

“Good. I won’t move for a while so just relax, hmm?”

Carefully leaning forward, I press a few kisses near the small of his back and stroke his flank with my free hand for ten minutes or so, feeling Shay gradually relax almost into sleep.

“Shay? Shay, I’m going to move my hand now. I’m going to pull back a bit.”

I do and Shay gasps, moving his hips back a little, as my closed fist pulls against his strained muscle.

“Do you feel that pressure, Shay? You’ll feel that when I knot you, that constant backwards pull - it’s entirely normal. It will feel a little different when I knot to you. I’m not as wide behind my knot as my wrist is.”

I could warn him that any strong, sudden movements would be dangerous but Shay doesn’t need reminding. His scars are visible around my wrist. We’ve come so far in the last few months and that Shay continues to be so concerned with my pleasure and that he trusts me enough for this after all he’s been through moves me greatly.

Releasing the pressure on him, I kiss his back again.

“Shay? I’m going to move my hand now. Just try to relax and let me know what feels good and if you’re uncomfortable or anything. Hmm?”

I shift my hand a little, just rotating it slightly, and Shay makes a low kind of humming sound as I continue to move. I press a firm hand on Shay’s lower back to prevent any sharp movement then angle and twist so that my knuckles brush against the sensitive nub inside him.

“Oh!”

Oh, indeed. I remember how this feels well. Not just this sharp pleasure but also the fullness, the feeling of being caught, though of course being knotted is even more invasive. Alphas can barely control themselves and once knotted by one, there’s no telling when one will be released. A fist creates a far more reassuring sense of control over the situation and because it’s wider than the average alpha shaft, it creates less of a feeling of being caught, _trapped_.

Meanwhile, Shay has learnt to enjoy it and so I still before I push him too far.

“There, Shay. Why don’t you try it? Move your hips… There, gently. Gently.”

I watch him, holding my arm rigid and still, as he rolls his hips a little, moving backwards then forwards, higher then lower, testing and trying, searching for the angles and movements that will make him see stars. He works himself into a such a state and his movements become so rough and urgent that I have to stop him for fear he will hurt himself.

“Enough, Shay. Easy. I’ll take care of you. Shh, there now.”

He only needs a little more encouragement before he comes, all his muscles tightening around me as he does and I wait, patiently caressing his back, until he is calm and drowsy again.

“Shay, will you help me out? I’ll start pulling out and when I tell you to, just push gently, the way you did earlier.”

I collapse my hand again and start to draw it out until my knuckles catch again, making Shay gasp.

“There. Push now, gently.”

Shay grips the towel, presses his forehead against the ottoman and braces himself but he does as he’s told, breathing quick and rasping and shallow, catching as I pull, and he bites back a sharp sound then collapses asI break free of him.

“It’s over, Shay. All over. There, hawkling..”

I wash my hands and dry them then lean up to cover Shay’s trembling body with mine, burying my face against his hair.

“Are you all right, Shay?”

“Aye. Haytham?”

“Mmm?”

“I still want…”

“Hawkling, it would be unreasonable. You must be sore-.”

“I’m not. _Please_ …?”

He sounds so sweet and yearning and after two hours spent seeing to his pleasure, I can’t deny my own needs have become a little pressing.

“Are you sure?”

“Aye. Please.”

So I ease myself out of my breeches and after giving myself a few rough strokes, I nudge Shay’s thighs a little further apart and he sighs and twines his fingers with mine, gripping tightly, as I mount him.

**Author's Note:**

> * William Eyre designed Fort William-Henry
> 
> [Shay's waistcoat inspiration](http://poison-despatch.tumblr.com/post/164491088397/inspiration-for-shays-waistcoat-from-a-history)
> 
>  


End file.
